Rove: Trump Is Making the Same Mistake as Biden

Karl Rove says he is a "bit cloudy" on why President Trump called him a "total Loser" in a Truth Social post late Sunday, but he believes it must have been the criticism he mixed in with praise in a Fox News appearance that night. The veteran GOP strategist says that during a seven-minute appearance on Trey Gowdy's Sunday Nights in America, he praised Trump's handling of the border and the military in his first 100 days and gave him "a grade of incomplete on most other issues," including the economy.

• "Perhaps what set Mr. Trump off was my suggestion he stop saying gasoline costs $1.98 a gallon 'in many states right now,'" Rove writes at the Wall Street Journal. "It isn't that cheap anywhere, and Americans know it. The American Automobile Association says the national average for a gallon of regular gas Wednesday was $3.154, with the lowest price $2.649 in Mississippi," Rove writes. "Mr. Trump can keep asserting inflation is fixed because gas is less than 2 bucks, but that's how his predecessor got in trouble. Saying 'Bidenomics is working' when few thought it was hurt President Biden badly. Mr. Trump risks being seen as similarly out of touch."

• When the conversation turned to tariffs, "I suggested it didn't help Mr. Trump, a billionaire, when he said young girls must sacrifice for America by getting fewer dolls at Christmas, which he admitted will cost 'a couple of bucks more,'" Rove writes. "These comments made him sound like Scrooge, I opined."
• Instead of arguing about Kilmar Abrego Garcia or claiming he can't be retrieved from El Salvador, Trump should bring him "back to the US and put him in a courtroom," Rove writes. "If he's as bad as the president says, then it's game, set, match. If not, he'll get justice and the issue will fade. If Mr. Garcia stays in El Salvador, this sideshow will keep diminishing the president's numbers."
• Shortly after Rove's Fox appearance, Trump posted: "I don't need to have Karl Rove of FoxNews to tell me what to do. The guy's a total Loser who's been wrong about almost everything!"

(More Karl Rove stories.)