President Donald Trump has more to be concerned about than responding to protesters crowding into Republicans' town hall meetings, and should leave his comments up to pundits on television, former deputy chief of staff Karl Rove said Wednesday.
"I think some of them have done quite well," Rove told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program about lawmakers who have chosen to go ahead with their town hall meetings. "[Sen. Chuck] Grassley went into it and took all the questions, answered them thoughtfully, listened to people as they talked, and then responded."
But Trump, in a tweet on Tuesday, chastised the "so-called angry crowds" and said the protests were in many cases "planned out by liberal activists."
"I don't think it was a good use of the president's tweet," Rove said, as it drew attention to the protests rather than to the good economic news and work he's doing on jobs, paychecks, the economy and more.
"Leave the political commenting to the people who — to pundits like me on television and advocates on cable news and blogs," Rove said. "The president has bigger fish to fry than this."
Rove also discussed Trump's plan for revising an executive order that has been rejected by the courts, saying he does believe the new document will stand legal tests.
However, he does believe there should be language saying a ban on Syrian refugees isn't permanent.
"Instead of saying no 'Syrian refugees ever' what they could say is we'll cut the cap in half for the number of refugees, [that] will accept from 110,000 in each fiscal year to 50,000. That means you will be more circumspect in who you allow in."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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