Republican strategist Karl Rove cautioned that President Trump’s assertions regarding the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uncovering “hundreds of billions” in fraudulent government spending could ultimately backfire. He suggested that Democrats will seize on the absence of legal action against alleged wrongdoers to undermine the claims.
Appearing on Fox News’s “Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy,” Rove echoed Democratic strategist James Carville’s perspective that the best approach for Democrats is to “allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight.”
In his recent address to Congress, Trump condemned what he called “appalling waste” in federal expenditures. He commended Elon Musk, the billionaire head of DOGE, for exposing what he described as massive fraud amounting to “hundreds of billions of dollars” across various government agencies.
According to DOGE’s official website, the department has identified and eliminated roughly $105 billion in fraudulent activity through efforts such as terminating contracts and grants, canceling real estate leases, and implementing cost-cutting initiatives. However, these figures have not been independently validated.
Rove pointed to the administration’s rhetoric on fraud as a potential weak spot, warning that it provides an opportunity for Democrats to demand concrete evidence.
“If there is fraud, you want to go after the fraudsters and you want to indict them and prosecute them,” he stated, emphasizing that Democrats will likely capitalize on the issue at the right moment.
“The Democrats can conceivably wait a reasonable period of time and start to say, ‘Where is the prosecution to the people that you said defrauded the government, and when will you start putting them in jail?’” he said, as reported by Mediaite.
He also criticized Democrats for their approach, arguing that their anger alone would not yield political benefits.
“The Democrats, just by being angry, are not doing themselves any good and they are not doing the country any good,” he remarked.
Rove repeatedly aligned himself with Carville, who had recently advised Democrats to take a step back politically and “play dead.”
“Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight, and make the American people miss us. Only until the Trump administration has spiraled into the low 40s or high 30s in public approval polling percentages should we make like a pack of hyenas and go for the jugular. Until then, I’m calling for a strategic political retreat,” Carville wrote in a guest column for The New York Times.
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