Fox News analyst Karl Rove tore into President Donald Trump, saying the president was in “very bad shape” with the general public after his tariffs upended the economy.
“When it gets to the economy, he is in very bad shape,” Rove said on Fox News’ Journal Editorial Report Saturday. “And it’s not only that he’s in the short term in bad shape, there’s also evidence in the poll that no matter—even if he gets his way on certain things like tariffs, that he’s not good in the long run."
Rove further told The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page editor, Paul Gigot, on Saturday that a Fox News poll with Trump’s economic approval rating hovering at 38 percent showed that Americans are angry about how he has managed taxpayers’ money.
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The stock market suffered its worst crashes in half a decade earlier this month after Trump announced—then pulled back—sweeping reciprocal tariffs on the world.
Rove, a former adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney, ran through the poll, which showed that 54 percent of Americans say Trump’s tariffs would hurt the economy in the short term—and 51 percent say it will hurt the country over time.
“There’s some very deep-seated skepticism among ordinary Americans about the effect of the economy, the president’s economic policies, both in the short run and the long run,” Rove said.
Gigot then suggested Americans voted for Trump because of his economic policies, which made the poll results even more “startling.” But Rove contended that his win was rooted more in nostalgia for a pre-former President Joe Biden economic era—one his tariff plan would abolish.
“They just hoped that he would do better on inflation and jobs and economic growth,” Rove said. “And then when he came in, just the sort of chaos and the inability of the administration to explain what they’re doing, I think has hurt them very much.”
Rove then blasted Trump for not visiting the Southern border after his various immigration orders despite campaigning on immigration and attacking former Vice President Kamala Harris over her visits to the U.S.-Mexico border.
“He has yet to go to the border and explain to the American people what he did,” Rove said. “And I think the same thing applies to the economic policies. All they know is there’s tariffs, and there’s talks about taxes, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it doesn’t seem to be making things better when they look at the tangible things of going to the grocery store, filling up their car, and looking at the stock market returns.”
Trump has long expressed his ire for Rove, writing on Truth Social last year that Fox News should “GET RID OF KARL ROVE!!” He has also called Rove a “pompous fool with bad advice.”
