Though Rove assessed that Trump delivered a “outstanding speech” at Mount Rushmore that “talked about American values and American heroes,” he criticized the president for following up his scripted weekend appearances with two controversial social media posts Monday.
In these tweets, Trump blasted NASCAR’s determination to ban the Accomplice flag from its races and demanded an apology from the game’s high Black driver, Bubba Wallace. He additionally reprimanded the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians for saying they might overview potential identify modifications for his or her sports activities franchises after years of strain from Native American teams.
“The query is, did what the president tweeted on Monday advance the trigger that he laid out on Saturday? And I believe the reply is an unambiguous no. It didn’t,” Rove advised Fox Information. “The president has a restricted variety of days between now and the election. And when he tweets, it’s a strong message. And the query is, does that message proceed to advance the narrative that he and people round him determined that he would lay out on [Friday] at Mount Rushmore? And the reply is not any, it didn’t.”
Rove additionally weighed in on Monday’s White Home information briefing, the place press secretary Kayleigh McEnany admonished reporters for not asking a couple of spate of gun violence throughout the nation over the vacation weekend. Rove prompt Trump’s tweets had distracted from media protection of the shootings.
“I noticed the press secretary yesterday say to the White Home press corps, ‘Why aren’t you asking about the entire violence that was in our American cities over the weekend?’” he mentioned, including: “That was a great query. However the reply is as a result of the president didn’t tweet about that. He tweeted about Bubba Wallace and the Accomplice flag and NASCAR. And I don’t see that these advance his trigger in any respect.”
Rove has not hesitated to acknowledge Trump’s diminished political standing, conceding two weeks in the past on Fox Information that “the president is behind” former Vice President Joe Biden within the race for the White Home roughly 4 months from Election Day.
In a Wall Road Journal op-ed printed final Wednesday, Rove wrote the Trump marketing campaign “should admit {that a} reset is required,” and he implored Trump once more final Friday to articulate an agenda for a possible second time period. “No president will get reelected by saying, ‘I’ve finished a great job,” Rove advised Fox Information.
Nearly all public polling exhibits Trump trailing Biden by substantial margins nationally, with the presumptive Democratic nominee bolstering his leads in the identical swing states Trump captured in 2016 to win workplace. Solely 38 p.c of People at the moment approve of the job Trump is doing as president, in response to a Gallup ballot printed Monday.