Karl Rove is calling out the Trump’s campaign 'critical mistakes' — and telling Biden how to exploit them

Many critics of former President Donald Trump were hoping that the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building would be his political downfall. Instead, Trump is the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, and countless polls are showing a very close election as Trump tries to unseat President Joe Biden while facing four criminal indictments.

Moreover, Trump is openly praising the January 6 rioters on the campaign trail, exalting them as "hostages," political prisoners and "unbelievable patriots" who he will pardon if he defeats Biden in November. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York), hoping to be Trump's running mate, has joined him in describing the attackers as "hostages" rhetoric.

But one well-known conservative who is calling out Trump's praise of the rioters is veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove.

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During an early April interview appearance on MSNBC, Rove told host Ari Melber and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois), "I worked in that building as a young man. To me, the Congress of the United States is one of the great examples of the strength of our democracy and a jewel of the Constitution. And what those people did when they violently attacked the Capitol in order to stop a constitutionally mandated meeting of the Congress to accept the results of the Electoral College is a stain on our history. And every one of those sons of b*****s who did that, we ought to find them, try them and send them to jail."

A frustrated Rove said of Trump's defense of the rioters, "Why Trump has done this is beyond me…. Now, he's appearing in a video with people who assaulted police officers with an intent to take the Capitol by force."

Rove continued, "You know, look, I'm a Republican, I don't want to have a Democrat president. I want to have a Republican president, but we're facing, as a country, that decision and everybody has to make it as to what kind of leadership we’re going to have. And to me, it is a mistake on the part of the Trump campaign to allow the president's impulses to identify himself with the people who assaulted the Capitol rather than people who stand for law and order."

The 72-year-old Republican argued that praising the January 6 rioters as heroic is a terrible reflection on his party.

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Rove lamented, "One of the critical mistakes made in this campaign is that Donald Trump has now said, 'I'm going to pardon those people because they're hostages. No, they're not. They're thugs. There were people who had automatic weapons in a hotel in Virginia, hoping to be able to be called up. We had people saying, 'Where's Nancy Pelosi?' We had people who were… sitting at the desk of the speaker of the House and attempting to find people in order to bring them to justice."

The GOP strategist even offered the Biden campaign advice on using Trump's praise of the January 6 "thugs" against him.

Rove said of Democrats and the Biden campaign, "If they were smart, they would take January 6 and go hard at it. And they would say, 'He wants to pardon these people who attacked our Capitol.'"

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