Trump backs Ramaswamy’s attack ad; Ukraine’s access to Starlink restored but still slow

President Donald Trump says Vivek Ramaswamy should not take down a controversial campaign ad featuring his opponent's mother, who claims she's lying to voters about childhood abuse. And I say that she's fair game. Plus, Corey Lewandowski, one of former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's top aides, is under investigation by the Justice Department, suspected of using his position for financial gain. And Ukraine's access to Starlink has been mostly restored, but President Trump refuses to say whether he made it happen. The stories that matter, the facts you can trust from across the country to around the world. This is unbiased updates from Straight Arrow. Hey, everybody. I'm Christian Bryant. It's Friday, October 23rd. Thank you so much for joining us. Let's get you caught up and ready for the day ahead. We begin with a big shift on a controversial campaign ad. President Donald Trump now says Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican running for governor of Ohio should keep running a contentious ad against Democrat Amy Acton, despite calls from both sides of the aisle to take it down. Remember this from yesterday? The fact is, I know nothing about it, but I hear the mother went very rogue on the daughter, doesn't have a lot of respect for the daughter. It's a very unusual situation to have a mother hate a daughter that much, but I don't think that has anything to do with the thing. That was Trump's initial reaction when asked about the ad, which features Acton's long-estranged mother calling her daughter a liar and urging Ohioans not to vote for her. But here's what Trump said when asked about the ad again on Thursday. All I know is Amy Acton's mother said horrible things about Amy Acton, calling her a liar and other things, and unreliable, a lot of very bad things. And I say that she's fair game. He doubled down in a post on Truth Social saying Ramaswamy should keep running the ad. Trump said, quote, who wouldn't use such an ad? I would. It's called hitting pay dirt. He also blasted Ohio's Governor Mike DeWine, calling him a rhino, a Republican in name only. After DeWine joined calls for the ad to be taken down, calling it deeply troubling. So it's wrong to run this ad. And even at this late time, my wife Fran saw the ad run this morning on TV. I would just urge the Ramaswamy campaign to take this down. It's just wrong. DeWine stopped short of pulling support for Ramaswamy, though saying he'll continue to endorse the whole Republican ticket. Acton says she was sexually abused as a child by her mother's second husband. He was indicted on assault charges, but never stood trial after skipping bail. A court terminated her mother's parental rights, and the women have not spoken or seen each other in almost five decades. The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into Corey Lewandowski, a former special government employee who was an adviser to former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Prosecutors are looking into the role Lewandowski played in awarding certain government contracts and made money off those contracts. This investigation follows an inquiry by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector General into a $220 million contract for ads that featured Nome encouraging immigrants to self-deport. But according to NBC News, the investigation expanded to include whether Lewandowski sought payment in exchange for protecting and growing the interests of a company that was seeking additional government contracts not related to the ad campaign. Lewandowski is a former political adviser to Trump serving as his campaign manager for part of the 2016 presidential race. When reporters asked Trump about the investigation, he said he didn't know much about it, but it's all for weeding out dishonest people in his administration. I mean, I heard something about it, but I don't know exactly what it is. All I know is I want my people to be honest, and if they're not gonna be honest, they have to be prosecuted. I don't know about specifically, but because I view if people are not honest, they're stealing from me. As president, they're stealing from me, so I want my people to be honest, and if they're I'll have my DOJ go and do whatever they have to do. Lewandowski, who served as one of Noem's top advisors until she was ousted in March, denies any wrongdoing. The Justice Department has asked an appeals court to block California from counting mail-in ballots for more than 20,000 voters, at least for now. The DOJ made the request on Thursday, saying it can't wait until next week for a lower court judge to rule in its lawsuit challenging the eligibility of those voters. The department had originally asked U.S. District Judge David Carter to make a decision by yesterday afternoon, but he scheduled a hearing in the case for next week. The Justice Department is seeking to block California from counting mail-in ballots from voters the Trump administration suspects of not being U.S. citizens. California officials say there's no proof these voters aren't eligible. And with the November 3 midterm elections now less than two weeks away, the Justice Department told the appeals court it interpreted Carter's lack of ruling as a constructive denial of its request, according to NBC News. Meanwhile, Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters on Thursday he won't rule out trying to stop states from certifying mail-in votes after the elections. Yes, of course there's scenarios that we could all come up with hypothetically, you know, some doomsday scenario, for example, right? It is not DOJ's intention to, and it's never our intention, to improperly interfere with elections or the state confirmation process or certification process, but to say that there's no circumstances that we would ever do that, of course I'm not going to say that. But am I planning my days around the election to be somewhere to not certify? Of course not, no. California is one of eight states, along with the District of Columbia, that have what are known as all-mail voting systems. Voting by mail has frequently been a target for President Trump as he continues to push his unproven claims of widespread voter fraud in U.S. elections, even though that's how he casts most of his ballots in his home state of Florida. Ukraine's access to Starshield has been restored, reportedly after a call from President Trump to Elon Musk. Both the U.S. and Ukraine officials told The Wall Street Journal that Starshield, the military-grade version of Starlink, is now, quote, working more normally after speeds were throttled last week. limited Ukraine's ability to fend off attacks from Russia. But some Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, say the service is still not as fast as usual. Trump administration officials told the Journal that the president called Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX operates Starlink, and asked him to restore Kyiv's access to the military satellite system. But on Thursday, Trump wouldn't confirm whether he stepped in on behalf of Ukraine. Yeah, I don't want to comment on it, you know, whether I called or whether somebody else called. It doesn't make any difference. I guess the bottom line, he put it back. Trump has denied being behind the initial decision to restrict Ukraine's Starshield capabilities and said he didn't know whether Musk was behind it. The service was slowed as tensions grow between Trump and Zelensky over Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil production facilities. He was the captain of a spaceship under attack in Alien and Tom Cruise's commanding officer in Top Gun. Actor Tom Skerritt, whose Hollywood career spanned more than six decades, has died. He was 93 years old. Skerritt, who served in the U.S. Air Force before he became an actor, began his acting career by appearing alongside Robert Redford in the 1962 drama War Hunt. He later appeared in the film Steel Magnolias and found success on the small screen, starring as Sheriff Jimmy Brock in the TV drama Picket Fences from 1992 to 1996. That a role that earned him an Emmy. He made his Broadway debut in 2013, starring in the stage adaptation of John Grisham's A Time to Kill at 80 years old. His family says Skerritt passed away Wednesday from natural causes. Finally, this morning, former President Barack Obama returns to the campaign trail Saturday, this time hoping to boost two Democratic candidates in Michigan. Obama will appear on behalf of gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson and Abdul El-Sayed, who's running for an open Senate seat. The former president has appeared in dozens of campaign ads for Democrats this cycle, but is now making a direct appeal to voters in a tight race. El-Sayed holds a narrow lead in polling against Republican Mike Rogers. As the campaign has progressed, El-Sayed has faced some tough questions, but he's answered with some questions of his own. Take a listen. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. But I want to ask the question that you're asking. Why are you asking the question? Okay, no, no, but what are you implying? Do you assume that I wouldn't? Yes. Why not? Because I have not heard you disavow them yet. Have you disavowed them? I haven't heard you disavowed them yet. I disavowed them. Do you? Great. Earlier this week, I asked Straight Arrow senior politics reporter Ozzy Pabra about El-Sayed's rhetorical style on the campaign trail. There has been a lot of questions thrown at him that he, by his nature, seems to think are illegitimate. So rather than answering the question that he gets asked, he takes it as an opportunity to question the person posing him the question and basically saying, why are you asking me that? Come out and just say the thing that you're implying. It is fascinating. He's making them come out and say what it is that's behind their question. And it's not something that we're seeing a lot of on the campaign trail. You can catch my full conversation with Ozzy on the free version of Offscript, available on YouTube or Spotify, or become a premium subscriber and watch the full episode on SAN.com or the app. Folks, we're the fastest, fairest few minutes in news. Watch us anytime at SAN.com or on our app, or join our growing audience on Spotify or your favorite podcast app. We're glad to be a part of your morning routine. Before we go, get in touch, folks. Email me, leave a comment. I actually read them. Unbiased updates at san dot com. Let me know what you think or just say hello. That's unbiased updates for this friday for the unbiased updates team and all of us at straight arrow. I'm christian Bryant. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you again next week.