Karl Rove Now Says Hillary 'Doesn't Have Brain Damage'
Washington Post reporter Karen Tumulty is tweeting out portions of an interview with Karl Rove in which he walks back on his comments -reported by the New York Post's Page Six - alleging that Hillary Clinton has brain damage.
Just talked to @KarlRove Says of Hillary: "Of course, she doesn't have brain damage," but needs to be more forthcoming about what happened.
- Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) May 13, 2014
Despite the clarification, the Republican strategist and former adviser to President George W. Bush was steadfast on his belief that Clinton's health may be worse than she appears, suggesting it could be a factor as she mulls a run for president. "This is a serious health episode…She would not be human if it didn't enter into her calculations," Rove told the Washington Post.
In 2012, the former Secretary of State had a blood clot that forced her to postpone her congressional testimony on the Benghazi attacks. While some Republicans saw it as a way for Clinton to skirt around the issue, Rove says he was not one of them.
Where other GOPers accused @hillaryclinton of "Benghazi flu," @karlrove told me "she didn't feign illness" when she reskeded testimony
- Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) May 13, 2014
On Monday night the New York Post published a headline reporting that at a conference outside Los Angeles that evening, Rove declared that Clinton has "brain damage" and that if she runs for President in 2016, voters must be told what happened when she suffered a fall in December 2012.
Clinton's team is fighting back against the claims. A spokesperson told the New York Post, "Please assure Dr. Rove she's 100 perfect."
UPDATE: Since this morning Clinton's team has slammed Rove for his allegations about Clinton's health, calling his accusations "a form of sickness," and saying the GOP is "scared of what she has achieved and what she has to offer."
Cinton spokesperson Nick Merrill emailed the following statement to ABC:
From the moment this happened seventeen months ago, the Right has politicized her health. First they accused her of faking it, now they've resorted to the other extreme - and are flat out lying. Even this morning, Karl Rove is still all over the map and is continuing to get the facts wrong. But he doesn't care, because all he wants to do is inject the issue into the echo chamber, and he's succeeding. It's flagrant and thinly veiled. They are scared of what she has achieved and what she has to offer. What he's doing is its own form of sickness. But she is 100%, period. Time for them to move on to their next desperate attack.