Former Republican strategist Karl Rove argued that Donald Trump made one “key mistake” during Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.
Rove, a top White House official under President George W. Bush, did give the president credit for his use of gallery guests throughout his 108-minute address. But when it came to his ability to appeal to the voters that Republicans would need to win over in the midterms, Rove said he fell flat.
“He savaged Democrats as ‘sick people’ and ‘crazy,’ claiming they ‘are destroying our country,’” Rove, 75, wrote in his column in the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal. “This cheered Republicans and angered Democrats in the room. But did it help Mr. Trump with the key voters the GOP must sway in the midterms? Almost everything the president said energized his MAGA hard core. But they aren’t enough to stave off a shellacking this fall.”
Rove, 75, also noted Trump “tried to force” Democrats to stand and applaud them, then “lacerated” them when they did not. “He was spoiling for a fight,” he added.
The columnist, whom Trump has dismissed as a “total loser,” said the 79-year-old president should have focused on voters who have become “disenchanted” after his first year back in office. The GOP consultant pointed to how Trump’s approval rating is nearly 8 points lower now than it was last January, according to the RealClearPolitics average.
“For them, the president’s speech almost certainly didn’t sound based in reality,” he continued, saying Trump gave an overly optimistic view of the economy.
Rove even compared Trump negatively to his predecessor. When Trump talked about prices, tariffs, and budgets, Rove said he “sounded as out of touch as Joe Biden did when he kept proclaiming ‘Bidenomics is working.’” In fact, Trump last night and Biden in 2024 made similar boasts about the economy.
Trump’s tone was also a problem, Rove argued.
“It too often sounded like a political convention speech rather than a presidential address,” he wrote. “Even by the former’s standards, it was angry, pugnacious, and hence less effective.”
Rove concluded that Trump gave some elements of a winning argument for Republicans, the GOP has to come up with “more substance, be more forward-looking, display more empathy, and focus much more on the economy than what Americans heard Tuesday.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
Rove has regularly spoken out against Trump’s actions in the pages of the Journal and on Fox News, where he is a contributor.
While the majority of his warnings about the need to change course have been about the economy, Rove has also criticized the president over his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Last July, he said there could be “hell to pay” for not resolving the issue. Seven months later, questions persist.
On Tuesday, NPR reported that the Department of Justice didn’t release documents that related to a woman’s claim that Trump and Epstein sexually abused her when she was around 13.
