Two longtime Republican communicators offered a blunt on-air assessment Friday night, arguing that their party's leadership had ceded its independence to President Donald Trump in his second term — with the consequences now on display in Alaska.

Doug Heye, a former Republican communications director, and Tara Setmayer, a GOP communications director, said they could offer no defense of the party's capitulation to Trump when they appeared Friday night on CNN. Both blamed the party for Trump's Friday move to personally direct the Department of Justice to insert itself into Alaska's elections if Republicans lose.

Trump openly acknowledged that he ordered the Justice Department to intervene in an election if — and only if — his side loses. Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as Trump's defense attorney in the hush money case he lost, made clear that he has no problem serving Trump in that capacity as attorney general. In the view of the two commentators, the episode erased any lingering perception of separation and independence between the Justice Department and the White House.

The separation at issue dates to the post-Watergate era, when the Justice Department's independence from the White House became a defining guardrail of American governance — the principle that prosecutors, not presidents, decide when federal law enforcement touches an election.

Heye told CNN "OutFront" host Erin Burnett that Republicans knew exactly what they were approving when they voted to confirm Blanche.

"I made a bet with a friend of mine who worked for one of the three, what we call the YOLO Caucus: [GOP Sens.] Thom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn. I said, 'I'll bet you a real fancy steak dinner that all three of them, who are really troubled with Todd Blanche, will 'Yes'. He called me a name I'm not going to repeat on air, but he wouldn't take the bet. So, when all three voted 'yes,' I said, 'do I get my steak dinner?'"

"This is what Republicans have signed up for," Heye added. "And unfortunately, if chaos is ensued here in the next couple of weeks in Alaska … Donald Trump is already laying his case out for how he's going to muddy these waters."

He framed the coming weeks in Alaska as the window in which that directive could move from threat to action.

Setmayer was no less accusatory.

"This is literally just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, Donald Trump has been laying the foundation for interfering in these midterms for years," she said. "A lot of his acolytes have been studying how to manipulate the system, how to stress test it, ever since January 6. And now you have no guardrails. And there are so many people in positions of power now that weren't there the first time around who are looking at war gaming things and ways to do this. I'm concerned about a trifecta here."

"And the thing about it, [Trump] is so audacious. Now they're telegraphing what they're going to do. I mean, they've been telling us for years. They laid it out in Project 2025. You had these different legal think-tanks where … a lot of MAGA supporters were cooking up these ideas. I just don't want Democrats to suffer from a lack of imagination of what this administration is laying the foundation to do come Election Day," Setmayer said.

Project 2025 — the Heritage Foundation-led policy blueprint for a second Trump term — is the document she was citing.

"They're showing us they have people in power who can do it. And Todd Blanche, I guess he fell asleep during the Watergate history books, because that is why we had that separation between the Justice Department and the president of the United States," she added. "… [T]hey're going to mess with the system."