Karl Rove went before a friendly crowd and declared JD Vance unfit to ever lead the Republican Party.
The old Bush war salesman even waved around an exit poll to prove his point.
And Donald Trump Jr read Rove’s attack and came away with a very different conclusion.
Karl Rove Picked a Big Stage to Disqualify JD Vance
Karl Rove ran George W Bush’s political operation and served as his deputy chief of staff. Rove recently took the microphone at the Jewish Federations of North America’s annual General Assembly in Washington, DC and unloaded on the Vice President.
He didn’t bother with subtlety.
“He is a neo-isolationist, and he would bankrupt our economy and make the world a far more dangerous place by abandoning the quintessential, essential ally of the United States in the region,” Rove said of Vance, referring to Israel. “And that’s why he should not be president of the United States, nor the Republican nominee.”
Vance’s read on the midterm wipeout set him off. The Vice President pinned the Republican losses on the war with Iran and argued that voters wanted changes in the relationship between the US and Israel.
Rove called that “total bunk.” Then he pulled out an exit poll that showed just 4% of voters naming foreign policy as their most important issue, with 39% picking the economy and 33% choosing the state of democracy.
“The numbers show it was not true. He was doing it because his attitude is we need to abandon Israel,” Rove said.
So the man who helped steer the party into 2006 now wants to grade everybody else’s homework on why Republicans lose.
Don Jr Treated the Attack Like a Gift
The President’s eldest son didn’t need long to answer.
“I don’t think there could be a bigger endorsement for JD or any Republican for that matter, than to be opposed by king RINO Karl Rove. If Karl Rove hates you, then you must be doing something right. Being praised by Karl Rove would be the mother of all red flags!!!!” Donald Trump Jr wrote on X.
King RINO. Folks who have watched Rove operate over the last quarter century probably got a kick out of the crown.
But Don Jr’s point runs deeper than a nickname. For decades, Rove’s approval has served as a pretty good weather vane for where the establishment RINO wing wants to drag the party: amnesty for illegal aliens, free trade deals that shipped factory jobs overseas, and foreign wars with no finish line.
And voters already rendered a verdict on that agenda once. They threw Republicans out of both chambers in 2006 as Iraq soured, and two years later the Wall Street collapse helped carry Barack Obama into the White House.
Every Charge Rove Leveled Carries Donald Trump’s Fingerprints
Here’s the part Rove left out of his speech.
Vance wasn’t the only Republican who blamed the war. The day before Rove spoke, CBS’ 60 Minutes aired President Trump’s interview with Ross Douthat, and Trump offered nearly the same diagnosis.
“They didn’t like the war. They didn’t like the fact that gasoline went up, because I had it down at a low,” Trump said. He went further: “There’s a great dislike, incredibly, for Israel.”
Trump told Douthat he agreed with his Vice President’s assessment of what sank Republicans at the polls.
Then there’s the “abandoning” charge. On the morning of the midterms, Trump went on Fox & Friends and announced that US military aid to Israel would end, a wind-down that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first raised himself at Mar-a-Lago, according to Jewish Insider.
“We’ve already agreed that by the end of this year we won’t be paying Israel,” Trump said.
So the President agreed with Vance about why Republicans lost. The President ended the aid. And Rove aimed both barrels at the Vice President anyway.
That pattern tells readers everything. Going after Trump directly still costs too much with Republican voters, so the old guard swings at the man standing next to him and hopes nobody notices the overlap.
But the exit poll trick doesn’t hold much water either. A “most important issue” question forces voters to check a single box, and Trump himself linked the spike at the pump to the war. Plenty of those economy voters were paying for that war every time they filled the tank.
Maybe that stretches the point a little, since nobody can read every voter’s mind. But pollsters asked the question head-on. In the Fox News Voter Poll, about three out of every four voters said the war weighed heavily on their House vote, ranking it either crucial or a major factor. NBC News exit polling found 63% calling the decision to take military action against Iran the wrong one, and 15% of that group still voted Republican, which means the doubts reached deep into the GOP’s own ranks.
The Man Warning About Bankruptcy Already Ran Up One Enormous Bill
“Bankrupt our economy” is a bold phrase coming from this particular strategist.
In August 2002, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card set up the White House Iraq Group to market the case for invading Iraq to the American public. Karl Rove was one of its members, alongside Condoleezza Rice and Scooter Libby.
The neoconservatives sold that war as quick and affordable. The same crowd spent the last year pushing President Trump toward the fight with Iran, and now they want the party to forget who lit the fuse.
Nobody forgot the last one. Brown University’s Costs of War project found that 4,488 American service members died in Iraq, and the researchers warned that interest on the borrowed money could push the final tab close to $4 trillion through 2053.
Rove never seemed to lose sleep over the national debt while that bill piled up.
The Old Guard Wants Its Party Back After Trump
Look past the Israel talk and the polling squabble, and the real fight comes into focus.
Rove and the donor class have one goal for the next two years: reassert control the moment President Trump leaves office. Vance stands in the way as the MAGA heir apparent, a man who opposes endless foreign wars and the open-borders policies that swap American workers for cheaper foreign labor.
That explains the venom. The establishment can tolerate a lot, but it can’t tolerate a Republican who says out loud that the war lobby cost the party Congress.
Democrats will happily exploit the split. With both chambers in their hands, Senate Democrats are already lining up a year-end funding fight over the war, and every Republican who turns on another Republican hands them fresh ammunition.
Don Jr may have delivered the line with four exclamation points, but he picked the right target. Rove keeps lecturing the party about fiscal ruin and dangerous worlds.
In 2002, the Office of Management and Budget pegged the cost of the Iraq war at $50 to $60 billion. Brown University’s Costs of War project later put the bill at $2.2 trillion.
Sources: Jewish Insider, “Karl Rove says JD Vance ‘should not be president’ over Israel, Middle East stance”; Jewish Insider Daily Kickoff, “Rabb’s brotherly shrug”; Josh Kraushaar on X; Dagens, “No ‘bigger endorsement’: Don Jr. flips criticism on its head to defend backing JD Vance”; VIN News, “Trump Jr. Celebrates Rove’s Warning on Vance as Badge of Honor”; Jewish Insider, “Trump blames midterm losses on Iran war and ‘great dislike’ of Israel”; Jewish Insider, “End of U.S. aid to Israel not surprising, but timing of Trump’s announcement rankles”; Brown University News, “Iraq War: 190,000 lives, $2.2 trillion” (Costs of War project); NPR, “To Mark 10th Anniversary Of Iraq Invasion, Researchers Assess The Cost”; Media Matters, “Media turn to discredited Bush officials to respond to Obama’s Iraq speech”; SourceWatch, “White House Iraq Group”