Trump drops a blistering response to Karl Rove's scathing criticism of his CPAC speech



Former President Donald Trump released a fiery statement excoriating Republican strategist Karl Rove after Rove penned a scathing criticism of Trump's speech at CPAC.

Trump called on Fox News to fire Rove and exhorted the Republican party to drop him.

"Karl Rove has been losing for years, except for himself. He's a RINO of the highest order, who came to the Oval Office lobbying for 5G for him and a group. After a lengthy discussion with Rove and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, I said no, they're not qualified. Our Nation can do much better!" said the former president.

"Karl Rove's voice on Fox is always negative for those who know how to win. He certainly hasn't helped Fox in the ratings department, has he?" Trump added.

"He's a pompous fool with bad advice and always has an agenda. He ran the campaign for two Senators in Georgia, and did a rotten job with bad ads and concepts. Should have been an easy win, but he and his friend Mitch blew it with their $600 vs. $2,000 proposal," he continued.

Trump went on to claim that the election was fraudulent and that Republicans would have lost seats in the House of Representatives and fared even worse in the Senate if it weren't for him.

The statement was meant to refute the arguments Rove made in an op-ed at the Wall Street Journal. Rove noted that the former president got explosive applause at the conference, but that only 68% of the attendees wanted him to run for president again.

Supporters want him to offer a forward-looking vision, but he won't. Some view his declarations of civil war on Republicans as counterproductive and claims of political power hollow. And his repeated cries of stolen elections are causing some supporters to abandon politics altogether and others to doubt his claims.

Elements of Mr. Trump's speech were fine. But true to form, the former president did it his way. The speech's divisive, controversial and embittered parts dominated the coverage. He might be pleased by that, but shouldn't be. Republicans shouldn't be either.

The former president has been much more vocal about politics since his speech at CPAC. Earlier on Thursday he released a separate statement excoriating the Wall Street Journal editorial board for calling on Republicans to drop him over the failures of the congressional elections.

Here's more about Trump's CPAC speech:

Trump Breaks Silence With CPAC Speech | NBC Nightly Newswww.youtube.com

YouTube deleted videos of Trump's CPAC speech and suspended a channel that posted it



YouTube reportedly deleted videos of a speech given by former President Donald Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and suspended at least one channel that published it.

The Right Side Broadcasting Network first noted the deletion of their CPAC Trump video on Thursday in a tweet from their official account.

"RSBN has been suspended from YouTube for two weeks because of the Trump #CPAC2021 speech, which violated their guidelines on election misinformation," said the RSBN Network.

NEW: RSBN has been suspended from YouTube for two weeks because of the Trump #CPAC2021 speech, which violated their… https://t.co/MUzPl4xo2B
— RSBN 🇺🇸 (@RSBN 🇺🇸) 1614876986.0

"The video was approaching 4 million views. They have also removed it from their platform," they added.

RSBN later added that it appeared that uploads of the speech by Trump were deleted from other channels, including those from the mainstream media. A search of YouTube garnered no results for his speech from the 2021 convention.

Videos critical of the president and others who spoke at CPAC were still available, including those which showed clips from the speeches.

RSBN indicated that the deletion and suspension might have been in relation to false claims the former president made about the results of the election.

It’s worth noting that according to YouTube’s terms, our video of Trump’s CPAC speech would have been allowed to st… https://t.co/APGwmWqJmk
— RSBN 🇺🇸 (@RSBN 🇺🇸) 1614897787.0

"We try to follow the rules. Don't air certain things that we normally would—but we won't censor President Trump or push back against things he says that, quite frankly, we agree with," they added in a second tweet.

Donald Trump Jr. weighed in on the deletion of the videos from his Twitter account.

"This sort of manipulation and interference only shows how much weight these monopolies put on the scale of freedom. It's never going to end until we all band together to stop it," tweeted Trump Jr.

Here's one of the videos of the CPAC speech still allowed on YouTube:

Trump's CPAC remarks in 180 secondswww.youtube.com