President Donald Trump blasted a top Republican operative after he said he would vote for a Democratic candidate for the first time in decades.
Trump, 80, raged at GOP election guru Karl Rove Monday evening shortly after it was reported by The Texas Tribune that the former George W. Bush aide said he wouldnât vote for a âbigotâ Republican candidate in Texas.
âKarl Rove is so bad for the Republican Party, and completely wrong so often,â Trump wrote on Truth Social. âHe 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.â
âWhy does FoxNews and the WSJ keep his RINO Voice alive. The guy is a stone cold loser!â he added.
Rove, 75, said at a lunch event in Austin on Monday that he would vote for Houston Democrat Jon Rosenthal for state railroad commissioner over GOP candidate Bo French, whom he called a âbigot,â according to the Tribune.
French had made racist comments about South Asian students at the University of Texas in an X post on Sunday.
âI heard UT graduation this year looked like this,â the MAGA candidate captioned a photo of UT students celebrating a football win, who were primarily people of color. âI didnât believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.â
French immediately encountered fierce bipartisan backlash to his post, including from his own stateâs GOP senator John Cornyn.
But the Republican nominee doubled down on his stance, saying during a conservative radio show appearance Monday morning that those attacking him were âless conservative people,â the Tribune reported.
Rove, a veteran GOP strategist, said at the lunch event that the only other time he has voted for a Democratic candidate was in 1994 when he voted for Bob Bullock for Texas lieutenant governor.
The GOP guru has shifted away from Trump throughout his second administration, questioning the presidentâs midterm strategies and blasting his failed peace deal with Iran.
Rove wrote in the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal earlier this month that Trumpâs heavy spending on self-aggrandizing TV ads and his nonstop rallies in battleground states could be making matters worse for the president.
âFor starters, if your approval rating is low, making the election even more about you only helps the opposition,â Rove wrote.
The strategist suggested that instead of platforming Trump, whose approval rating sits in the low 30s, it would be a better idea to highlight GOP candidates in ads and spend money to support their campaigns.
âPlastering his face on every screen in every toss-up race will make the midterms even more about him and tie those candidates to an intensely unpopular status quo,â Rove emphasized.
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