On Monday’s airing of “Fox & Friends”, former White House strategist Karl Rove suggested that former President Barack Hussein Obama did a “political drive-by shooting” after the former president criticized the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Rove’s remarks came after Obama gave a virtual commencement speech Saturday, appearing to take aim at the Trump administration, though Obama did not directly reference either President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence.
“More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing,” said Barack Obama. “A lot them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.”
The former president added, “If the world’s going to get better, it’s going to be up to you. With everything suddenly feeling like it’s up for grabs, this is your time to seize the initiative. Nobody can tell you anymore that you should be waiting your turn. Nobody can tell you anymore ‘this is how it’s always been done.’ More than ever, this is your moment– your generation’s world to shape.”
Karl Rove fired back at Obama’s remarks declaring: “It is so unseemly for a former president to take the virtual commencement ceremony for a series of historically black colleges and universities and turn it into a political drive-by shooting.”
“This is a moment where these young graduates could be inspired to a life of service, to recognize that life is going to bring challenges and how we handle the challenges is going to demonstrate our character. There are lots of positive messages that the former president could have delivered,” Rove said. Continued Below
“But the news that we have out of this speech, out of this appearance, he says ‘the pandemic has finally torn back the curtain that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing’, don’t know what they’re doing. Lots of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge,” Rove continued.
“I mean think about that. He has slandered not just the president, who’s his political target and he made it clear a week ago that he was gonna go after him, but he’s taking a slap at the vice president whose done an extraordinarily effective job as the head of the Coronavirus Task Force, Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, Secretary Azar, Director Redfield, … Director Collins– all of– the Army that put up that hospital in the Javid Center, the Navy that sent its ships to Los Angelas and New York– all of these people that are in charge of responding to this,” he explained.
“[Obama] has now finally said, ‘They don’t know what they’re doing’. … We’re getting lectured by a guy whose administration depleted the national strategic stockpile of N95 masks after a previous smaller pandemic and didn’t replenish it, and he’s sitting here lecturing the current president by sending a blanket condemnation of everybody whose been involved in this. These people don’t know what they’re doing. They’re not even pretending to be in charge,” Rove added. Video Below
Karl Rove’s official remarks:
Reacting to Obama's commencement speech, Fox contributor Karl Rove accuses the former president of committing "a political drive-by shooting" pic.twitter.com/xCBAj7YBQd
— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) May 18, 2020
Barack Obama’s remarks:
(Related: Jesse Watters Rips The Obama Administration Over Their ‘Scandal’: “This Goes All The Way To The Top”)
