Trump Criticizes Karl Rove
President Donald Trump voiced his disapproval of Republican strategist Karl Rove on Monday, claiming that the former adviser to George W. Bush has consistently been misguided and has supported candidates and ideas that Trump has already overcome. He suggested that Rove is detrimental to the Republican Party.
Trump expressed his views on Truth Social, stating, “Karl Rove is so bad for the Republican Party, and completely wrong so often. He suffers from a major case of Trump Derangement Syndrome primarily because, for almost 10 years, I beat back and won against so many of the people and things that he wanted and espoused. Why does Fox News and the WSJ keep his RINO Voice alive? The guy is a stone cold loser!”
This latest criticism adds to a long history of disputes between the two figures, which have centered on Trump’s candidacy, policy decisions, and strategies during elections, often highlighted in Rove’s analyses on Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal.
In July 2015, Trump labeled Rove a “proven loser” after Rove suggested that reducing gun violence would necessitate removing firearms from society and repealing the Second Amendment. Trump criticized Rove for allegedly squandering hundreds of millions of dollars in the 2012 election and defended the Second Amendment as a fundamental right essential for personal and familial protection, asserting that Rove’s stance displayed a lack of respect for constitutional freedoms.
Two days later, Trump remarked to Breitbart News, “Karl Rove spent $430 million dollars on various campaigns last cycle. Didn’t win one. Which is pretty hard to do.” In response, Rove wrote in a Wall Street Journal column that Rove’s Crossroads groups invested $103 million in the 2014 election cycle, which helped secure 10 out of 12 targeted Senate seats and 10 out of 13 competitive House seats, comparing Trump’s possible impact on the GOP to that of former Rep. Todd Akin in 2012.
During a rally in Dallas in September 2015, Trump branded Rove a “totally incompetent jerk,” repeating, “He’s terrible. He’s terrible. He’s terrible.” He claimed that any donor to Rove and his “group of losers” was a loser themselves due to their lack of understanding of what they were doing.
By February 2016, Trump was openly questioning Rove’s ongoing presence on Fox News. He spoke with Sean Hannity about “some bad people at Fox” while acknowledging that there were also “some great people.” He specifically criticized Rove’s election-night commentary from 2012, insisting he shouldn’t be on the air.
In April 2016, Rove released a Wall Street Journal column titled, “Vanity Will Be The Donald’s Undoing.” Trump retorted by calling Rove a “dishonorable guy” who “shouldn’t be allowed to write for the Wall Street Journal,” accusing him of fabricating quotes.
Trump also conveyed that he presumed Rove was attacking him because Rove would not be involved in his administration if he were elected. “Because I want nothing to do with him,” he stated to Breitbart News, adding, “Because I don’t respect him.” Trump dismissed Rove as being “out of tune” and “out of touch,” claiming that Rove used language that Trump had never used.
After Trump assumed the presidency, Rove continued his criticisms, suggesting that Trump would be perceived negatively by the American public during disputes like the one over NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. He lamented that Trump could have been an “aspirational figure” instead of a “condemnatory figure.”
In August 2018, Rove rebuked Trump’s description of the press as “the enemy of the people,” calling it “over the top,” and suggested that such remarks were not constructive for the country. He expressed that it bothered him deeply and recalled how that phrase was used during the Cold War against enemies of the communist regime.
Later that month, Rove warned against any president seeming to demand investigations of political opponents, declaring it “unseemly,” and questioned how Republicans would react if the situation was reversed with a Democratic president.
Following the 2020 election, Rove stated, “America likes comebacks, but they don’t like sore losers,” suggesting that Trump was nearing the point of being seen as a sore loser post-January 6.
Trump revisited his criticism of Rove at CPAC in March 2023, reflecting that the Republican Party had transformed since his initial presidential campaign, emphasizing, “When we started this journey… we had a Republican Party that was ruled by freaks, neocons, globalists, open-borders zealots, and fools, but we are never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove and Jeb Bush.”
The feud remains relevant in Trump’s second administration. In a Truth Social post on May 4, 2025, Trump asserted, “I don’t need Karl Rove telling me what to do,” labeling Rove a “Loser who’s been wrong about almost everything.”
Rove also became a focal point in the Texas Republican Senate race of 2026. Records revealed he donated $7,000 to the Cornyn Lone Star Victory Fund and $3,500 to Texans for Senator John Cornyn, which led Laura Loomer to accuse him of supporting candidates trying to “derail Trump.” Paxton had previously branded Cornyn “a puppet of the Bush and Karl Rove team.” Cornyn had a narrow lead over Paxton in the March primary, ultimately resulting in a runoff that Paxton won, becoming the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Texas.
