The second Trump Administration has been a huge success in many ways, including in foreign policy, with some of its notably high-risk, high-reward efforts, such as the raid in Caracas, garnering seemingly big and quick results. However, an unfortunate side-effect of that foreign policy success and “America is back” messaging is that the neo-conservatives are slinking back into the GOP camp, for now, and trying to influence Trump and push him into disastrous actions abroad, particularly in Iran.
As such, reviewing Trump’s treatment of those types and their most significant media source, Fox News Channel, is important, as it shows both what he naturally thinks of them when left to his own devices, rather than being perniciously influenced by traitors within the ranks, and that the current foreign policy objectives of the neocons aren’t necessarily what will come from the foreign policy moves Trump is making abroad.
One of the current president’s best comments on the subject came way back in November of 2022, when he skewered both Fox News and former George W. Bush ally Karl Rove, ridiculing FNC and hammering Rove as a RINO. Given Rove’s prominent position with the neocon ranks, continued influence through his FNC appearances and Wall Street Journal articles, and the credence the uninformed give him, reviewing what Trump said is a useful means by which the Trump treatment of the neocons can be examined.
In one such post of his on Rove and Fox News, one that came in late November of 2022, after the midterms, the president skewered Rove as being a “loser,” a “fool”, and a RINO, saying, “RINO Karl Rove is a Fox News loser, a pompous fool with bad political instincts. In other words, he loses a lot.”
Continuing, the president noted that Rove’s career has consisted mainly of him garnering and then wasting donations given by Establishment figures, and managing to achieve not a thing with all that money. The president said, “Only good at taking peoples money, and wasting it. I was 12 and 0 against him in Senate Endorsements, not something I’m proud of, but something people, especially candidates, should know!”
That came as a quote-tweet of another, similarly timed Truth Social post in which the president wrote much the same thing, calling out Rove for being a noxious and loser RINO and ridiculing Fox News for giving him so much air time in which he could push his ridiculous, loss-connected views.
Beginning that post, the president wrote, “RINO Karl Rove, a man with a losing record the likes of which few political operatives would be able to get away with, including his loss to me in 2016, fights so hard and so stupidly, but is constantly on Fox News and the once great Wall Street Journal, explaining how things should be done – and he doesn’t have a clue.”
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Concluding, the president noted that Rove is the sort of cretinous political operative that Americans can’t stand, saying, “People can’t stand him, a clone of even more unpopular Paul Ryan, who sadly runs Fox News, now on a very bad path. Rove is a DINIER of DINIERS, which makes him a fool.”
So, while President Trump is known to watch Fox News a great deal and to listen to some neoconservative warmongers who are notorious in MAGA circles, such as Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), which is a concern given the emphasis the president is placing on foreign policy, there is no reason for despair, as the president has shown that he doesn’t always listen to what message FNC is pushing and that he despises many of the neocons and sees their views as being the views of losers.
Watch Trump hammer RINOs in Indiana here: