President Donald Trump came out swinging against longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove, branding the former George W. Bush adviser a “stone cold loser” who has repeatedly steered the GOP in the wrong direction. Trump accused Rove of suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome” after nearly a decade of opposing the president and the candidates and policies associated with his movement. He also questioned why Fox News and the Wall Street Journal continue giving the Bush-era operative a platform.
Trump delivered the broadside Monday in a Truth Social post that revived one of his longest-running feuds with the Republican establishment. Rove served as a senior adviser and deputy chief of staff in the Bush White House before becoming a prominent Fox News commentator and Wall Street Journal columnist. His criticism of Trump has repeatedly placed him at odds with the president and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party.
“Karl Rove is so bad for the Republican Party, and completely wrong so often,” Trump wrote. “He suffers from a major case of Trump Derangement Syndrome primarily because, for almost 10 years, I beat back and won against so many of the people and things that he wanted and espoused.” Trump turned to the media outlets that continue featuring Rove, asking, “Why does Fox News and the WSJ keep his RINO Voice alive. The guy is a stone cold loser!”
The latest attack follows more than a decade of public clashes between the two Republicans. As Breitbart News reported, Trump called Rove a “proven loser” in July 2015 after the strategist said the only way to guarantee a dramatic reduction in gun violence would be to remove guns from society and repeal the Second Amendment, while adding, “I don’t think it’s an answer.” Trump responded by describing the Second Amendment as “a bedrock natural right of the individual to defend self, family, and property.”
Trump also hammered Rove over the enormous sums spent by political groups connected to him during the 2012 election cycle. “Karl Rove spent $430 million dollars on various campaigns last cycle. Didn’t win one. Which is pretty hard to do,” Trump said during a July 2015 interview. Rove later disputed Trump’s characterization, pointing to Republican victories during the 2014 cycle and arguing that groups affiliated with him helped win 10 of 12 targeted Senate races and 10 of 13 competitive House contests.
The feud continued during the 2016 presidential campaign, when Trump questioned why Fox News kept Rove on the air and mocked his infamous election-night refusal to accept that Barack Obama had carried Ohio in 2012. Trump also accused Rove of inventing quotes for a Wall Street Journal column titled “Vanity Will Be The Donald’s Undoing.” “Because I want nothing to do with him,” Trump said when asked why Rove opposed his candidacy. “Because I don’t respect him.”
Rove continued criticizing Trump after his first election victory. During the 2017 controversy over NFL players kneeling during the national anthem, Rove predicted that Trump would walk away from the dispute as “a loser in the minds of the American people.” After the 2020 election, he warned that Trump was “on the edge of looking like a sore loser” and said he would probably be viewed that way after January 6th.
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The division reappeared during the 2026 Republican Senate race in Texas. Federal campaign records highlighted during the primary showed Rove donating $7,000 to the Cornyn Lonestar Victory Fund and another $3,500 to Texans for Senator John Cornyn Inc. Trump ultimately endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who defeated Cornyn in the May runoff after attacking the incumbent as a product of the Bush-Rove Republican establishment.
Trump had already returned to the feud in May 2025, writing, “I don’t need Karl Rove telling me what to do,” and calling him “a Loser who’s been wrong about almost everything.” His position on Rove’s place in the modern GOP was even more direct during a 2023 CPAC speech. “We had a Republican Party that was ruled by freaks, neocons, globalists, open-borders zealots, and fools,” Trump said, “but we are never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove and Jeb Bush.”
Featured image credit: Jay Godwin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons