Karl Rove is a regular on Fox & Friends, both the weekday and weekend editions (which have different hosts). It had been a while since he had been on either– not since 2011, in fact– and so he had prepared a cute New Year’s Resolution joke about how he would promise to protect the female host from the other two jokers, except it appears he prepared it for the weekday edition. And so, this morning, he mistakenly promised Alisyn Camerota that he would protect Gretchen Carlson from her co-hosts. Oops!

Even George W. Bush’s top strategist Karl Rove thinks House Republicans overreached in reneging on the payroll tax cut deal. His advice: having lost the politics, Republicans should wait until (or to see if?) President Obama flies off to Hawaii on vacation, bash him and congressional Democrats for abdicating their duties, and then … pass the same Senate payroll tax cut compromise they could have passed on Tuesday.

The Donald Trump debate brawl on the right between the real estate/reality TV titan and apparently everyone respected on the American right continued full steam ahead today, as Mitt Romney declined the debate invitation and Ed Rollins joined in on the Trump-bashing. Not one to be left behind, Trump commented on the new attacks on the radio today with Laura Ingraham, blaming Karl Rove for single-handedly guaranteeing a victory for President Obama and calling Jon Huntsman‘s quip that he wouldn’t kiss “any part of his anatomy” “sort of disgusting.”

Man of the moment Donald Trump sat down with the folks at Fox & Friends Tuesday morning to discuss his recent meeting with GOP presidential hopeful – and early RSVP to this month Trump-moderated debate – Newt Gingrich.

The last time Donald Trump was a relevant political actor in the news cycle, it took a little longer than for most commentators for Lawrence O’Donnell to let go. Now that he’s back, O’Donnell began today’s episode of The Last Word with a thorough excoriation of Trump, Newt Gingrich for meeting with him, and a post-mortem with Chuck Todd on his Trump interview this morning.

The evolution of Karl Rove‘s feelings on the prospect of Donald Trump moderating a Republican debate while contemplating running for president himself has been a marvel to watch. On Saturday morning, he was confused that anyone would take it seriously. This morning, he was insulted. Tonight on On the Record, Rove’s patience was clearly depleted, as he told host Greta Van Susteren it will “have the smallest viewership of any debate this year.”

Last week, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow made the case that current GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich is nominally winning the “Fox News Primary,” but a new oppo memo from former Obama White House spokesman Bill Burton suggests he’s getting his…well, he’s getting beaten in the Karl Rove primary. Citing several recent statements by Rove, and the fact that a Rove operative runs a pro-Romney SuperPAC, Burton wonders if Rove ” might have a dog in this fight.”

Early Monday morning, Donald Trump phoned in to Fox & Friends and said that if the candidate he eventually endorses doesn’t win the nomination, he may jump into the race as, “a free agent.” This all, of course, has to wait until after Trump’s new season of Celebrity Apprentice concludes in May.

If anyone on cable news could claim to have “seen it all” on the campaign trail, it is Karl Rove*, but even the Republican campaign mastermind is having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that Donald Trump is apparently moderating a Republican presidential debate. “This is weird, isn’t it?” he asked the hosts of Fox & Friends this morning, elaborating that he didn’t understand how someone threatening to run for president as an independent could moderate a Republican debate fairly.

Yesterday, Rick Perry decided to challenge Nancy Pelosi to a debate, thus setting up Pelosi for the obvious alley-oop that was a Rick Perry-impression (or a “late night talk show host doing an impression of Rick Perry”-impression). Perry has since responded by bringing up the 60 Minutes story that alleged insider trading on the behalf of folks like Pelosi and John Boehner. Today on America’s Newsroom, Karl Rove helped theorize whether or not any of this will help Perry in the long run.

Sarah Palin offered some advice to Mitt Romney, encouraging him to more openly embrace the fiscal and social conservative side of the Republican party, and to develop a more robust relationship with the Tea Party movement. This morning on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, host Martha MacCallum asked Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson and liberal “embed” Alan Colmes to discuss Romney’s strategy in engaging the powerful Tea Party contingent, which Carlson put in remarkably stark terms.

Karl Rove‘s Crossroads GPS PAC has released a new ad, backed by a huge ad buy, attacking Massachusetts candidate for US Senate Elizabeth Warren by tying her to the Occupy Wall Street movement’s most extreme elements. In an interview with a Boston ABC affiliate, Warren responded to the attack by refusing to disavow the movement, or to buy into the notion that support for its principles means support for the actions of all participants.

This afternoon on the Kilmeade and Friends radio show, seasoned Republican political strategist Karl Rove took some time to weigh in on the allegations of sexual harassment lobbed against presidential hopeful Herman Cain.

Rove referred to this morning’s New York Times report on the two women who have come forward and noted that, in Cain’s view, there appears to be a discrepancy between an “agreement” and a “settlement.” He then offered some advice for Cain.

This morning, Karl Rove went on Fox News and listed Herman Cain’s past mistakes on a white board, claiming the candidate had “peaked” in the polls. At the time, we suggested that this might just be another case of a GOP establishment type knocking a Tea Party favorite. Unsurprisingly, there was at least one person who was quick to jump on that theory. That person? Herman Cain.

Herman Cain’s reign on top of the 2012 contender list may be coming to an end. That’s the impression Karl Rove gave during an appearance on Fox News this morning as he slammed the candidate as having “created an image of him not being up for this task” through a series of blunders.

Karl Rove thinks Rep. Ron Paul‘s presidential campaign is too exclusive. On last night’s On the Record, Greta Van Susteren asked Rove to assess various Republican campaigns, and noted that he believed the only chance Rep. Paul has of winning the nomination is of making a note to appeal to a broader base of voters, instead of allowing the noise of his base to blind him to how few of them there are.

Laura Ingraham sat in for Bill O’Reilly last night on The Factor, where she spoke with political analyst and former Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to George W. Bush Karl Rove about a topic that’s been the subject of many headlines over the years, and this week in particular: “The politics of Mormonism.”

With the 2012 elections looming, the media has dedicated much of its time these past few weeks to figuring out the ultimate Republican field to challenge President Obama. On her program today, Rachel Maddow warned that to worry too much about who would actually end up on the ballot would be dropping the ball, because it was the financial infrastructure behind the Republican Party, led by Karl Rove, that would be doing the heavy lifting, and has already begun to do so.

Handicapping tonight’s debate for the Wall Street Journal, the sage Republican strategist Karl Rove suggests that the otherwise “competent and capable” Mitt Romney “needs to light a spark among GOP voters” if he hopes to be chosen as nominee. Rove also offered his assessment to current GOP front runner Rick Perry, and a few words of advice for Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum as well, but seemed most ready to heap praise on Romney. He’s just a little worried the former Massachusetts governor might be a little boring.

On his “Rewrite” segment, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell took on presidential candidate Rick Perry‘s delicate balance between his past controversial statements on Social Security and his need to appear mainstream within the Republican party during the 2012 race.

Appearing on America Live Thursday, Karl Rove responded to Rick Perry‘s slam of him at last night’s debate, saying “I didn’t realize I was under his personal care.” At last night’s Republican debate, when questioned over Karl Rove’s criticism of his labeling of Social Security as a “ponzi scheme”, Perry hit back, saying “Karl’s been over the top for a long time in some of his remarks, so I’m not responsible for Karl anymore.”

On Wednesday morning’s edition of Good Morning America, in an interview with George Stephanopoulos, Karl Rove called Rick Perry‘s stance on Social Security “toxic in a general election environment and…also toxic in a Republican primary.”

The rumored tension between Texas Governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry and the the last man to hold both titles simultaneously, President George W. Bush, has made for plenty of headlines– a tension around with many in the Bush camp have been implicated. Hosting The O’Reilly Factor tonight, Laura Ingraham got to speak to one of those in the Bush camp, Karl Rove, and drilled him on the relationship between two of his former candidates. Rove was not too happy to be addressing the rumors.

Christine O’Donnell appeared on The O’Reilly Factor as part of her promotional tour of her new book Troublemaker. Host Bill O’Reilly appeared to provide a much more welcoming interview than the one given by Piers Morgan (that spawned the publicity drawing mid-interview walk-off.) While O’Donnell mostly described how she had been victimized by both the media and her political supporters, she did get the chance to give Karl Rove some stick of her own.

If Karl Rove had been trying to hide his complete contempt for Sarah Palin in the past for the sake of Reagan’s eleventh commandment, he all but gave up on it tonight. Speaking to Greta Van Susteren tonight, Rove lashed out at Palin’s statement that his speculation on her candidacy was wrong by repeatedly referring to her “thin skin” and daring Palin to “end the speculation” and say she isn’t running if such speculation upsets her.