Donald Trump should have just ignored a letter signed by 50 top GOP national security experts opposing his campaign, rather than issuing a statement defending himself, political analyst Karl Rove said Tuesday.
"Yesterday, he had a good speech on the economy," Rove, a former White House chief of staff under President George W. Bush, told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program. "He could build on that, get it into an argument with Hillary Clinton. It's best for him not to continue to get into arguments with fellow Republicans."
For example, said Rove, Trump's continued opposition to the Iraq War is not a strong point with most Republicans, who did support the war and continue to believe that it was the "right thing to do."
Trump doesn't move on, said Rove, and that is a problem.
"Here is the deal, do you want to stay stuck in an argument with fellow Republicans or have an argument with a Democrat you can win?" said Rove.
Trump has argued that he won the Republican primary by appealing to people who are tired of Washington's establishment, but Rove said he's not certain that that tactic will continue to work.
"They are for him," Rove said of Trump's supporters. "They're not against other people. If you said to people, 'do you oppose the people who stood with Bush on the Iraq War?' I bet most of those people would say, 'no, no. I like what Donald Trump says he is going to do, not criticism of what Republicans have done in the past.'"
He pointed out that the 50 GOP foreign policy leaders who signed the anti-Trump letter aren't on the November ballot, but Clinton is, and she's vulnerable, especially when it comes to her past and current scandals.
Rove also denied Clinton's claims of being "short-circuited" during an interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace on Sunday.
"Chris Wallace asked her a question and she decided she didn't want to answer that question," said Rove. "She wanted to answer a different question. Wallace said, 'you know, Comey was critical of you, isn't that true?' And she said, 'no, he wasn't critical of me,' because she was thinking of her comments in the FBI."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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