Karl Rove Has Some Surprising Things To Say About Trump

Via RealClearPolitics

CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS SUNDAY: So, Karl, which better describes Donald Trump’s first month in office, chaos or a fine tuned machine?

KARL ROVE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I would lean more towards the former than the latter. But let’s give him credit, on substance, off to a strong start. A cabinet that’s turning out to be impressive. Moving ahead with some regulatory changes to Obamacare. Republicans on The Hill beginning to wrangle over what legislation to repeal it. Tax reform, again, wrangling, moving it forward.

WALLACE: So why chaos?

ROVE: Well, because the process. We saw that in the immigration executive order. They don’t have a process in place that is collaborative, that — that will — that puts cabinet secretaries with disagreements over White House policy in front of the president to make their arguments. They were rushed. They did it by using congressional staffers who didn’t tell their bosses. And as a result, they’re going to have to have a redo. But, you know, that’s the — we’ve got to give him credit. He’s — he’s — he’s moving forward in a lot of ways.

Spectacle, boy, off the charts. I mean early morning tweets, controversies about Meryl Streep’s ability to — to act, and then that blockbuster of a — of a news conference. I mean he — that — the whole purpose of which was to allow him to vent at the media. He looked Pharaoh with a whip in hand, whipping those slaves, getting them to build the pyramids. I mean by — he was unhappy.

I think Rove is right. On the policy side we’re seeing the most conservative cabinet of my lifetime installed. How can you possibly argue with Jeff Sessions, Scott Pruitt, and Betsy DeVos in terms of their policy preferences. Mattis, Kelly, and Tillerson are fairly non-ideological but have tons of organizational experience and they seem to have a good personal chemistry which will smooth a lot of interagency actions. The House and Senate are felling Obama regulations, including an Obama regulation protecting Planned Parenthood. Trump’s regulatory freeze is beginning to bite. Mick Mulvaney is director of OMB.

What did you notice about the Sunday shows this week? None of the real policy stuff that is happening was discussed. It was nearly 100% Festivus with the media doing the Airing of Grievances. That is a major news cycle win for conservatives.

I understand people not liking Trump, though, I have to admit it is becoming a bit harder each day to take the anti-Trump people any more seriously that I take Evan McMuffin McMullin. I’d be a lot more open to their constant whinging and fault finding if they would, like Rove, take a couple of seconds to acknowledge we’ve got more conservative stuff done in the past month than we got under eight years of Bush.

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