‘He’s Stuck’: Karl Rove Explains Trump’s Iran War Problem on Fox News

Legendary GOP operative Karl Rove explained President Donald Trump’s messaging problem vis-à-vis Iran during a weekend hit on Fox News.

Host Paul Gigot kicked off the conversation by asking Rove, “How do you rate this administration’s rhetoric on the war?

“Well, insufficient, and that’s timing. We had, you remember the last few months of 2001 and virtually all of 2002 in order to make the case that action was needed against Iraq. We had time at the U.N, the U.N. resolution. We had an authorization for the use of force resolution before the Congress. So we were able to consciously, deliberately, and over a long course of time to lay out the case. That’s not been the instance here. The president took action because he felt he needed to take action, driven by a desire to end this problem once and for all. And so he hasn’t had the time to do the run up to this, in terms of laying out a plan and laying out a message to the American people. And it shows in all the polling,” replied the Wall Street Journal columnist. “Virtually every poll shows that the American people are unsupportive of the action that he is taking in Iran. But let’s dig a little bit deeper in that, though, Paul, because there’s an interesting thing I found by comparing the Fox poll and the Quinnipiac poll that you mentioned earlier. Fox asks in its poll, do you approve or disapprove of the current U.S. military action against Iran? Fifty percent approve. In the Quinnipiac poll, they asked two questions. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald J. Trump is handling the situation with Iran? Thirty-eight percent approve. Do you support or oppose U.S. military action against Iran? Forty percent. So by asking this question, ‘Do you approve of Donald Trump?’ before you ask, ‘Do you approve of the action being taken there?’ it causes people who don’t like Donald Trump to, you know, flip. Twenty percent of Democrats agree with this first proposition. Five percent agree here, 7% here. Independents, 40% agree with this, 29% agree with this, but it pops back up to 37 when you put it back on, do you approve of what the military is doing? So unfortunately, for the president, he’s stuck. And he’s stuck with if it’s Donald Trump is doing it, there’s going to be a there are going to be few Democrats who approve, and a lot of independents who don’t.”

Watch above via Fox News.

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