Karl Rove sharply criticizes Donald Trump’s proposed $5,000 dividend as Republicans head into the 2026 midterm elections. Rove discusses Trump’s campaign finances, GOP Senate and House prospects, Republican voter dynamics, and the challenges facing the party ahead of the midterms.
The discussion also examines Trump’s influence over Republican candidates, campaign spending, immigration and border policy, and the potential 2028 Republican presidential field.
#KarlRove #DonaldTrump #Trump #TrumpDividend #5000Dividend #GOP #Republicans #Midterms #MidtermElections #USPolitics #2026Midterms #USNews #AmericanPolitics #TrumpNews
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The discussion also examines Trump’s influence over Republican candidates, campaign spending, immigration and border policy, and the potential 2028 Republican presidential field.
#KarlRove #DonaldTrump #Trump #TrumpDividend #5000Dividend #GOP #Republicans #Midterms #MidtermElections #USPolitics #2026Midterms #USNews #AmericanPolitics #TrumpNews
~PR.462~ED.194~GR.506~HT.178~VG.HM~
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NewsTranscript
00:00Every adult, every American will get a $5,000 dividend, the Trump dividend.
00:05I mean, first of all, nobody stood up and said, hey, that's a great idea.
00:09And second of all, a lot of people said, you know what, we can't afford it.
00:12We've got a $40 trillion deficit, of which you've added 12 on your watch.
00:17And no.
00:19And so it was a missed opportunity.
00:22Let's jump right into it.
00:23You've been making some news recently.
00:25You recently announced you'll be voting for John Rosenthal, the Democratic nominee for railroad commissioner, over the Republican nominee, Beau
00:32French.
00:34You said this is the second time in your life that you'll be voting for a Democrat.
00:39I know you've written about this in the Wall Street Journal and talked about it a little bit.
00:42But tell us today, in your words, how you arrived at the decision, what went into your thinking on that.
00:48Well, first of all, I buried my father-in-law on Thursday, memorialized him on Friday.
00:53And Saturday, getting interviewed by Patrick.
00:56Thus far, the decline.
01:02Simple.
01:04He revealed himself to be a bigot.
01:07Beau French.
01:08I mean, think about it.
01:09You're an undergraduate at UT, and you go to that game.
01:13And you endure three quarters of pain.
01:19You know, we had a negative five yards in the first quarter.
01:24And you're sitting there, you know, 43 seconds into it and into the fourth quarter, and Manning connects with Wingo,
01:32and you're back in the game.
01:34And that was probably one of the most exciting quarters of football that those 110,000 mostly kids are ever
01:41going to experience.
01:43And at the end of it, it's victory, and the place goes wild.
01:47And there's a wonderful picture of a sea of burnt orange undergrad, clad undergraduates screaming their heads off with joy.
01:56And this guy takes one look at that photograph and makes a couple of assumptions.
02:00First of all, in the front are some Asian, Southeast Asian and Latino, and there are some blacks.
02:06And there are a lot of whites.
02:08And he says, oh, my God.
02:10I heard about this at graduation.
02:12It's even worse than I thought.
02:13And a reporter calls him and says, what do you mean?
02:15He said, well, a lot of foreigners.
02:17Now, how did the son of a bitch decide that those were all foreigners?
02:22You know?
02:28I teach at UT.
02:30I teach at UT.
02:31It's an honor to do so.
02:33And I see these kids come in.
02:35And we have got a treasure in the way that UT does admissions.
02:39If you're in the top 5% of your class, you get into UT.
02:4290% of the kids at UT are from Texas.
02:45About 7% are from elsewhere in the country who want to be Texans.
02:49And there are about 2% or 3% that are foreign.
02:51And Beau French is so, you know, his mind is so capable and beyond the normal understanding of things
02:58that he could just look at a photograph and know who's a foreigner and who's not.
03:02Those were Texans, by God.
03:05And then I started looking into him.
03:12I mean, he sent out a tweet saying, who's worse for America, Jews or Muslims?
03:19And his whole history, the more I dug into it, the more I saw that this guy was basically…
03:25This is…
03:26The game happens on Saturday.
03:27I'm doing this…
03:28I'm wasting my Saturday and Sunday because it inflamed me so much.
03:31And so, Monday, I happened to be at a lunch at Headliners.
03:36And was it Headliners?
03:38Anyway.
03:40No.
03:40Yeah.
03:41And I got asked by Evan Smith, what did I think about it?
03:44And I made the mistake of saying, I'm going to do something I've only done once before
03:47in my life, and that is vote for a Democrat.
03:51And we were under Chatham House rules, which means you're not supposed to, you know, take
03:55that conversation.
03:56So, four people called up members of the press and told them, I'm going to find those…
03:59I'm going to find those sons of bitches, and they're going to learn the term rendition.
04:06And…
04:07But anyway, it got out, so I said, what the hell?
04:09In for a penny, in for a pound.
04:11So, I devoted my Thursday column to it and, you know, announced I was going to do something
04:17I haven't done in my life except one time before.
04:19I voted for Bob Bullock in 1994.
04:23I voted…
04:24You know, we had a Democrat state Senate.
04:26I hoped Bush was going to be governor.
04:28And if the Democrat Senate didn't have a Democrat lieutenant governor presiding over it, it would
04:34be hell, because they'd all want to go out and take shots at the Republican governor.
04:38But I knew Bullock cared about one thing more than anything else in his life, what was best
04:43for Texas.
04:44And I said to myself, Bush and Bullock can have a love affair, and they can work constructively
04:50together.
04:51And I'd rather have Bullock as a Democrat lieutenant governor presiding over the Senate than a Republican
04:57who had no experience in the Senate.
04:59They would have run over him, taken the power away from him, given it to themselves, and
05:03it would have been hell to pay.
05:05But my party is being infiltrated by people like Beau French.
05:11Nick Fuentes goes to Dallas and meets with a bunch of Republican leaders.
05:14This guy is a Nazi.
05:17You know, we've got all these people, you know, now on getting their little podcasts and so
05:22forth.
05:22We're just asking questions about the Jews.
05:26And we've got these lunatics who've got, you know, oh, you know, the first lady of France
05:31is a man.
05:32And this is going to hurt my party.
05:36Now, I know where I am.
05:38I live in this town, so I know about how about 80% of you are.
05:44You've got problems in your own party.
05:46Don't kid yourselves.
05:48But I don't, I'm not irresponsible for you.
05:51I am, I helped build this party.
05:52When I came here in 19, in November, December of 1976, we had gone a brief period of time
05:58without electing a Republican governor.
06:00109 years.
06:02I went to work for the senior Republican in the Texas House.
06:05There were 18 out of 150.
06:09Different in the state Senate.
06:10In one election alone, we had increased our numbers in the 31-member state Senate by 50%.
06:15In one election, we'd gone from two to three.
06:21And the people who followed, whether it was Phil Graham or Rick Perry or Bill Clements or
06:27George W. Bush or Kay Bailey Hutchison, these were my clients.
06:31And we didn't labor in the wilderness to build a conservative party that was inclusive and
06:37welcoming, said it didn't matter who you were or where you came from, what mattered, what
06:42was in your heart and what you believed.
06:44I didn't work for that party and see it taken over by a bunch of bigots.
06:49So by God, I'm voting for Rosenthal.
06:53So naturally, in the fallout from the announcement that you're voting for a Democrat for the
06:58second time in your life, people are looking at the rest of the statewide slate here and
07:03wondering, is Karl Rove supporting the rest of the Republican ticket in Texas?
07:07Are you, you know, for example, in the Senate race, do you think you'll be supporting voting
07:11for Ken Paxton?
07:12Who are you voting for?
07:13I told you backstage, I'm no longer a Texas voter.
07:16Yeah, well, I told you backstage.
07:18I wasn't going to give you a damn answer to that.
07:21And while I'm at it, I'm going to score one moral up, you know, upshot on you.
07:26I lived in Washington, D.C. for seven years.
07:29In order to get a property tax homestead exemption, you had to register in the District of Columbia.
07:35And I said, like hell, I'm going to register in the District of Columbia.
07:38I had a little place up in Kerrville.
07:40And I registered there.
07:42It cost me $3,500 a year.
07:44But by God, I cared about being a Texan.
07:47And so I wasn't going to weasel out and register in the District of Columbia in order to get
07:51that homestead exemption on that new place you bought on Capitol Hill.
07:55Fair enough.
07:56I do want to talk about the Senate race, even if we're not getting into your private voting
08:01decisions.
08:03You know, the Senate Leadership Fund right now is spending well over $100 million in Texas
08:08trying to make sure that Ken Paxton defeats James Tallarico.
08:11Do you think that's a good use of money?
08:13No, but they're going to have to do it.
08:15And that's just the start.
08:17That's enough through the end of September.
08:20If John Cornyn were the nominee, this race would be over.
08:25But, you know, when you've got a guy who's got multiple girlfriends and $200,000 worth of
08:30improvements in his house from a corrupt business guy for whom he does favors.
08:33I mean, my personal favorite is the Uber account in the name of David P. Since he drives around
08:39in a car that has SO4 license plates, it made it a little difficult to have assignations with
08:44one of his mistresses.
08:45So the corrupt business guy gives him the fake Uber account and the records of that are now
08:50in his impeachment proceedings.
08:51So we know how often he went to have sex with Laura Olson.
08:54I mean, where can you, can you make this shit up?
08:56I mean, really?
08:58Like you said, these are all allegations that came up at his House impeachment, or Senate
09:02impeachment trial in 2023.
09:04He was ultimately acquitted by the Republican election.
09:07He was acquitted in the Republican Senate, found guilty in the Republican House, and
09:11now it's in the court of public opinion, and that's why this is a race.
09:14If it were not out there, if this were the normal Republican versus Democrat, this would
09:20not be a race.
09:21But it is a race.
09:22And, you know, look, I left him at home, but, I mean, in the last 48 hours, Theodore Cruz
09:28has reached out to me and says we're losing.
09:30Ken Paxton has sent me several emails saying I'm losing, I need your help.
09:34I mean, you know, even the Republicans are admitting that they're behind.
09:38You mentioned this wouldn't be a race if Cornyn was the nominee.
09:41Is there anything John Cornyn could have done differently to win the nomination here?
09:44No.
09:46On Monday, eight days before the election, Monday night, I had access to the tracking being
09:53done by one of the outside groups.
09:56And so Tuesday morning, we got the numbers through Monday night, so it would be Friday,
10:00Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
10:02Cornyn was up on the ballot by five points.
10:04And more importantly, pollsters will ask the question, have you read, seen, or heard anybody
10:11about somebody?
10:12And does that make you more likely or less likely to vote for them?
10:15So about 80% had read, seen, or heard something about Cornyn, and they were more likely to
10:20vote for him by what they'd heard by eight points.
10:23About 78, 79% had read, seen, or heard something about Paxton, and they were less likely to vote
10:28for him by 14 points.
10:30So Cornyn is on his way to win.
10:32Not a big win, but a narrow win, but a win.
10:35And by Thursday, after the Tuesday endorsement by Trump, the numbers are reversed, and a large
10:40number of people are saying, I ain't voting.
10:43So, look, you know, it is what it is.
10:48You say what you will about the president, he has enormous strength in endorsements inside
10:53the Republican Party.
10:54He blesses you, and his people will turn out and vote for that.
10:59And now, going back to the general election and the Senate race, you know, do you believe
11:04it's competitive only because of shortcomings and mistakes made on the Republican side?
11:10Or do you think there's anything James Tallarico is doing on the Democratic side that is helping?
11:14Well, he's doing what Robert Francis O'Rourke did and energized the Democratic base.
11:19But, you know, this would not be a race if Cornyn were the candidate.
11:22And Tallarico has, whom I don't know, but he is here in Austin.
11:26Remember, he started out by winning a district that was occupied by a Republican in Williamson
11:32County.
11:33Admirable member, decided to retire, and he ran in that district.
11:37And he was able to get elected by getting the votes of Republicans and Independents in
11:42mostly Williamson County suburban district.
11:45They redistricted him then so he's virtually all inside Travis County.
11:49Now, this may surprise you if you're not from Travis County, but if you're a Democrat in
11:54Travis County, you don't worry about anybody to the right of you unless you're out in Lakeway.
11:58If you're in the far west part of the county, then you've got to worry because there are
12:00some Republicans out there.
12:02But otherwise, all you've got to worry about is the lunatic Democrat to your left.
12:07And so Tallarico has gone out and said these things, you know, existential threat, we've
12:12got to reduce our consumption of meat, you know, we've got the oil and gas, jobs are going
12:16away, and we should welcome that.
12:18And there are six genders, as you know, in this imperious tone.
12:22And yes, you know, biological boys ought to be able to participate in women's sports.
12:27All of these crazy things that he said and did, look, in Comanche and Tyler and San Benito,
12:36they really don't believe that boys ought to participate in girls' sports.
12:39It's called them strange out there, but that's how they feel.
12:42And so he's got all of this baggage that he's now trying to walk away from, but in a normal
12:49race, he wouldn't be able, it wouldn't work for him.
12:52But because of the doubts that people have about Paxton, this is a race.
12:56I want to move off of Texas, but one more question on the Texas race is, do you worry
13:01about Governor Abbott's race at all?
13:02I mean, you know, it feels like to Republicans like you who built the party, a little concerned
13:07about the direction, Abbott is still someone who is kind of at least holding it together,
13:11right?
13:12You know, has a sophisticated political operation, you know, thinks long and hard about policy
13:18decisions, even if they ultimately prove unpopular.
13:20It seems like someone that you think you still have a little faith to guide him.
13:23Yeah, yeah.
13:23Look, I don't worry about him because he does.
13:27He does what?
13:28Worry.
13:28Yeah.
13:29Okay.
13:29And so he's raised a bundle of money and he's going to lay it out there talking about
13:33what he's done and what he wants to do.
13:35And I think at the end of the day, Gina Hinojosa, who is, you know, basically nondescript in the
13:40legislature and really doesn't have a lot of compelling ideas or a compelling message, I
13:45think he's going to beat her.
13:46And I think the rest of the Republican ticket with the exception of the Railroad Commission
13:50is likely to carry as well.
13:52Got it.
13:53I want to talk about some national topics, but I do want to ask you this as we end on
13:56the Texas section.
13:57And you kind of got at this earlier, but when Texas Republicans who are, for example, aligned
14:02with Ken Paxson hear about Karl Rove opining on Texas politics, they tend to be very dismissive.
14:08And, you know, they say he's an old Bush guy, doesn't have his finger on the pulse of the
14:12party right now.
14:13You just outlined, obviously, your long history building the party to the point it is.
14:16But what is the best case you can make to like a, you know, a Paxson supporter right
14:21now for why they should care about what Karl Rove has to say in 26?
14:24I don't give a shit.
14:26Okay.
14:28Look, I'm blessed.
14:29I get to write 750 words every Thursday in the Wall Street Journal.
14:33I cannot believe that I get to write for one of the great newspapers in the world.
14:37They give me two weeks off a year and I've never taken them because I'm like, geez, do
14:42I really want to give up a chance to say what I want to say?
14:45You know, I'm on Fox 5.2 times a week, not that anybody's counting.
14:49And, you know, look, I mean, I look at these people and they say, well, I'm a rhino.
14:54Really?
14:55Where were you when we were fighting and scrapping to build this Republican Party?
14:59Where were you?
15:00Were you sitting in that room saying to that young state representative who was retiring
15:04from West Texas, say, you know what you ought to do?
15:07You ought to switch parties and run for ag commissioner.
15:09And if you lose every lobbyist, you know, you'll become a very successful lobbyist.
15:13But if you, Rick Perry, switch parties and run and get elected ag commissioner, your political
15:18career will be started again.
15:20I knew when I was a 21-year-old working at the Republican National Committee, I knew a 29-year
15:26-old
15:26communications director of the Republican National Committee.
15:29She's cute as hell.
15:30Every guy at the Republican National Committee was trying to date her.
15:33I had no chance at all because I was eight years younger and a geek.
15:37But I knew she had talent.
15:38And Kay Bailey Hutchison displayed it when she got elected treasurer as the first Republican
15:42to win a down-ballot state office since 1869.
15:47And, you know, where were these people out there raising in 2020?
15:50I went out and raised $13 million from people outside of Texas to help on the Texas state
15:56house races.
15:57Where were these sons of bitches?
15:58Don't lecture me.
15:59I run a voter registration project as a volunteer.
16:02I raised $600,000, $800,000, a million dollars a year in order to do it.
16:06That has registered 220,000 new Republicans this cycle.
16:12We have registered over 800,000 new Republicans since it began in 2019.
16:18Where are these sons of bitches?
16:19They're sitting there listening to, you know, Tucker Carlson mouth off or they're tuning
16:24into Steve Bannon.
16:25They can't be bothered to walk the precincts, raise the money, do the work necessary.
16:30And they're mouthing me and talking to me and telling me, you know, I'm a rhino.
16:34To hell with them.
16:39Talk about it.
16:40Though I do want to thank them.
16:42The threats that they made in the aftermath of my saying I was going to vote for John Rosenthal
16:47did get me DPS parked outside my house for a week because of, quote, credible threats
16:52that they won't tell me.
16:53I'd like to find the credible, who issued those credible threats and meet that sumbitch
16:57in a dark alley someplace.
16:59That happened very shortly after your Wall Street Journal op-ed?
17:03Yeah, no, it happened after the news got out about, got out on Monday.
17:07So by the time they just started, it actually served as an incentive to write the column.
17:12I said, if some guy is going to be, you know, hearing about me making a comment
17:16and threatening me and threatening a bunch of legislators, what the hell?
17:20In for a penny, in for a pound.
17:23And I enjoyed having the cop inside, the DPS officers inside the house.
17:28I had to give them the code to the door to get in the garage,
17:34and then we had to make sure they had the access to the restroom.
17:37And Karen put out lots of drinks and snacks for them.
17:40And it was sort of, but I, you know, when I had to let the dog out to go pee
17:44at, you know, 4 o'clock in the morning, I was hoping that I, you know,
17:47I had the robe on and so forth, you know, around the corner.
17:50And there's the armed DPS guy, you know.
17:52They're gone now.
17:53There's no, as far as you know.
17:54I'm not saying that they're gone now.
17:56Okay.
17:56That's true.
17:57We shouldn't, couldn't get into that here.
17:58Worse, better than that, I got my neighbor who's sitting in the audience here,
18:01and he looks out for me, too.
18:04Yeah.
18:04Yeah, John.
18:06Well, I want to look at the more national political landscape on, I guess,
18:11a less controversial topic to some President Trump.
18:14Right now, if you are a battleground candidate in one of these competitive districts,
18:19a Republican candidate, how should you be talking about President Trump, you know,
18:23in an evenly divided district right now?
18:25How do you think these candidates should be?
18:26Well, first of all, it's a mistake to be talking about them.
18:30Better that you be talking about the things that you want to do.
18:33There's a limited amount of time between now and Election Day,
18:36and you ought to have been talking early on about what it is that you believe
18:41and what it is that you want to do, and so that people say, you know,
18:45like Mike Rogers in Michigan.
18:47He said, I don't think we need to have tariffs on Canada.
18:50We've got a good trading partner there.
18:52Now, that was implicit criticism of the President,
18:54but he'd been saying that for nine months,
18:57and so it's seen less as a criticism of President
19:01and more as an expression of who he is, and that's the problem.
19:06A lot of these candidates were in a quandary as to what to do.
19:09You know, people are going to vote for,
19:10people are going to vote against him because they're on the Republican ticket
19:13and they're mad at Trump.
19:15New Wall Street Journal poll has a 37% approval rating,
19:19lowest of any President since the Wall Street Journal poll began.
19:22The only way to mitigate that is for people to say, you know what,
19:27Susan Collins, she is who she is.
19:30She does things that she thinks are right for Maine,
19:33and to the extent that candidates have been out there doing that,
19:37they're in better shape than the candidates who didn't.
19:40The President himself, the White House,
19:42they seem to think that putting him front and center,
19:44like with the midterm convention, is a strategy for this midterm election.
19:49Do you see any value or merit to that strategy?
19:51No.
19:53Is it?
19:53So it's all downside.
19:54Look, I've been through this.
19:562006, you think George W. Bush was popular?
19:59No.
20:01And we understood that.
20:03So we told people, we'll come in and do a private fundraiser for you
20:07and arm you up, but you do what you need to do in order to get elected.
20:11And that's not the way this guy operates.
20:14And as a result, you know, a president in a year like this ought to recede as a political figure
20:22and grow as a presidential figure.
20:26And it's hard for him to do that.
20:28He likes doing it the other way around.
20:30And, I mean, you know, take the midterm convention in Dallas.
20:37First of all, the Democrats had midterm conventions in the 70s and 80s,
20:40and finally a smart chairman said, these are a waste of resources and an opportunity for troublemakers.
20:48But, okay, he wanted to have one.
20:50Why do you have it in September?
20:53Why not set the tone in June?
20:55And why don't you have a message that is carefully thought out and delivered in such a way
21:00that it can be expanded upon and carried forward in a positive manner by the candidates of your party?
21:07Instead, what was the message coming out of Dallas?
21:10If you elect the Republicans this fall, every American will get a $5,000 dividend, the Trump dividend.
21:18And, I mean, first of all, nobody stood up and said, hey, that's a great idea.
21:23And, second of all, a lot of people said, you know what, we can't afford it.
21:26We've got a $40 trillion deficit of which you've added 12 on your watch.
21:31And, no.
21:33And so, it was a missed opportunity.
21:36You know, if you're going to launch something like that, at least go to the leadership in the House and
21:41Senate.
21:42Go to the smart people there and say, we're thinking about a range of options.
21:45Option A, option B, option C.
21:46Can we agree upon something that we want to come out of there with?
21:49This is a party.
21:51It is not a person.
21:53And he treats it as if it is him.
21:55And it's not.
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