Fox News contributor Karl Rove curiously railed against President Joe Biden’s call to battle racism and white supremacy on Thursday morning, saying that particular part of the inaugural address personally “offended” him.
After spending much of Wednesday praising Biden’s speech, in which the new president called for uniting the nation and ending “this uncivil war,” the veteran Republican strategist reversed course the following morning, blasting Biden’s new executive orders and grumbling over his anti-racism remarks.
“That’s an open invitation to have people come,” Rove said of Biden’s immigration executive actions and proposed reform bill. Among his 17 executive orders, Biden ended the so-called Muslim travel ban, called on Congress to grant permanent status to DREAMers, and repealed Trump’s immigration arrest priorities.
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“Let’s see what happens with the caravan,” Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer responded, before wondering aloud why the Biden administration is prioritizing a fight against racism and white supremacy.
“The racism thing to me is—I was offended in the speech,” the former George W. Bush adviser huffed in response.
Adding that it was a “good speech” and the “right speech for the moment,” Rove went on to say that America is only “divided as a country politically over questions of policy and direction” but is “united as a country against racism and nativism.”
“There are people in this country who are racists and nativists, but the vast majority of Americans stand together on those issues,” he continued. “They say, if you are not for me, you are part of the group that’s racist and nativist.”
Almost immediately after Biden’s inauguration, Fox News united around a message of rejecting the new president’s call for unity. While news anchor Chris Wallace called the speech the “best” he has ever heard, many of the network’s on-air personalities saw Biden’s repudiation of racism as a personal attack on all Trump voters.
Nationalist host Tucker Carlson, for instance, complained on Wednesday night about Biden’s “war on white supremacy,” insisting the White House is now demonizing half the country. The Fox & Friends crew, meanwhile, spent Thursday morning claiming Biden is causing the real disunity because he is “really wiping away much of what President Trump did.”
