President Donald Trump is leading the Republican Party to disaster in the midterm elections with his social media rants and unconvincing pronouncements on the economy, Republican strategist Karl Rove warned in his latest column for The Wall Street Journal.

“The president’s grotesqueries have to stop,” Rove wrote Wednesday.

Rove, a senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to former President George W. Bush and one of the architects of the Iraq War, has joined a growing chorus of Republicans who believe Trump is courting disaster with his divisive comments and messages.

Trump is “making the same mistake” as former President Joe Biden, Rove argued.

“Mr. Biden and his allies seemed out of touch with reality when they proclaimed that ‘Bidenomy is working’ even as ordinary Americans struggled with inflation,” he wrote in his column. “Telling voters not to believe their own lying checkbooks was political folly.”

Rove continued: “Mr. Trump is doing the same thing.”

Trump has repeatedly dismissed affordability as an issue of national concern and criticized director Rob Reiner after he and his wife were violently murdered.
Trump has repeatedly dismissed affordability as an issue of national concern and criticized director Rob Reiner after he and his wife were violently murdered.

Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg/Getty Images

In a speech Wednesday, Trump falsely said that prices for “everything” are going down and that “inflation has stopped.”

Rove wrote that Trump has not only “repeatedly mocked the issue of affordability,” but has begun to anger his own base.

“On Monday, Mr. Trump gained national attention when he decided to make a self-absorbed post on Truth Social criticizing Rob Reiner after he and his wife were horribly murdered,” Rove added, saying his incendiary comments about the late filmmaker disparaged Trump to his own supporters.

“Every day matters,” Rove wrote. “Presidential positions like that take up valuable time that should be spent winning over lukewarm supporters or persuading anyone willing to vote Republican. It doesn’t look good for the GOP next year.”

Rove warned the MAGA leader and his team that they have less than 11 months to win back disheartened voters, citing a Real Clear Politics average approval rating of 43.6% to argue that Trump “should focus on building Americans’ trust” in his administration.

News host Laura Ingraham also predicted midterm trouble for the Republican Party, as did her former colleague Bill O’Reilly.

Rove concluded: “The White House is on the wrong track. It had better get its messages right, both its formal attempts to steer the conversation and Mr. Trump’s spontaneous speeches on social media. Otherwise, the president won’t like the outcome.”