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President Donald Trump on Tuesday squandered any potential goodwill he may have gained with his State of the Union guests when he bashed Democrats as “crazy” and “sick people” during the Tuesday speech, Republican strategist Karl Rove wrote Wednesday in his latest column for The Wall Street Journal.

“In what may have been a first, Mr. Trump attacked his predecessor by name several times,” Rove noted. “He repeatedly condemned congressional Democrats, tried to force them to stand and applaud him, and lacerated them when they didn’t. He was spoiling for a fight.”

He continued, “Many presidents have used the occasion to pressure the opposition on key issues. None have done so as directly and brutally as Mr. Trump did Tuesday. He savaged Democrats as ‘sick people’ and ‘crazy,’ claiming they ‘are destroying our country.’”

Read the full opinion piece on The Wall Street Journal.

Trump shattered records by delivering the longest State of the Union speech ever given, but spent much of the time insulting his opponents and flat-out lying about his purported accomplishments. Rove argued Trump initially appeared rather magnanimous.

“The president electrified the House chamber by bringing in the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team and awarding goalie Connor Hellebuyck the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” he wrote. “Even Democrats stood and joined in the chants of ‘USA! USA!’”

Rove added, “Throughout his record number of guest introductions, the president was empathetic and personable. His remarks, delivered as written, were often moving, patriotic and unifying.”

But, he continued, “This was also the most partisan State of the Union in memory.”

The GOP strategist has been an outspoken critic of Trump. A senior adviser and deputy chief of staff for former President George W. Bush, Rove recently warned Trump and his “grotesqueries” could lead Republicans to disaster in the upcoming midterm elections.

Rove argued in his column that Trump did even further damage to his party’s chances in November by insulting Democrats.

While he noted that this “cheered Republicans,” Rove added: “But did it help Mr. Trump with the key voters the GOP must sway in the midterms? Almost everything the president said energized his MAGA hard core. But they aren’t enough to save off a shellacking this fall.”

Rove noted that the president’s atrocious current approval rating represents people who are “pessimistic” about the economy, for whom Tuesday’s speech “almost certainly didn’t sound based in reality” — as Trump claimed in his address that the economy was “roaring.”

“The congressional Joint Economic Committee says the U.S. lost 108,000 manufacturing jobs last year,” wrote Rove. “And all this took place amid growing public concern over the effect of artificial intelligence on jobs, utility bills, kids and the future.”

He continued, “Yet the president claimed ‘prices are plummeting downwards.’ They generally aren’t. His tariffs, he opined, will ‘substantially replace the …income tax,’ and ending fraud in federal spending will produce ‘a balanced budget overnight.’ They won’t.”

Rove, who certainly isn’t alone in expressing concern for Republicans’ chances in the upcoming midterms, warned in his column that any hope of success in those elections can only come if they offer far more “substance,” empathy and answers to clear concerns about the economy.

“They better get cracking,” he wrote. “Time’s a-wasting.”