Veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove delivers flashing red warning sign to Trump

Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Karl Rove looks on ahead of a funeral service for former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, at Washington National Cathedral, in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 20, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Veteran Republican strategist Karl Rove on Saturday delivered a stark warning for President Donald Trump and the GOP as the 2026 midterm elections loom.

“The president will end this year at the lowest approval rating in modern times for a president … in the first year after his inauguration," Rove told Fox News. "He has got to get those numbers up."

“I am convinced a large part of it is going to be patiently explaining what it is he has done, explaining what is he wants to do particularly with regards to health care in a way that the American people can put their hand around it,” he added.

Rove urged the president to “lower the expectations, and over-deliver” in his messaging to the American public.

“Under-promise and over-deliver ought to be the goal of the next year,” Rove said.

“Americans are not feeling the economy is great. For him to stand up and say — as he did first in Pennsylvania, then in North Carolina — that ‘everything is great,’ it does not resonate with the felt experience of ordinary American families,” Rove told Fox News.

“Second-term midterms are never happy ones for the president except in 1998’s for Bill Clinton when the Republicans overplayed their hand. And the first term for George W. Bush, but those have been a rare moment midterm election has worked to the advantage of the party in power,” he noted.

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