[Costello:] Bill Clinton is firing back over comments made about his wife's health. This after Republican strategist Karl Rove suggested Hillary Clinton might have suffered from complications. Well, he implied it was brain damage following a 2013 hospital stay.
[Bill Clinton, Former President Of The United States:] First they said she faked her concussion. And now they say she's auditioning for a part on "The Walking Dead". She works out every week. She is strong. She's doing great. As far as I can tell, she's in better shape than I am.
[Karl Rove, Republican Strategist:] Wait a minute no, no, I didn't say she had brain damage. She had a serious health episode.
[Costello:] So there you have it. Senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar joins me now to talk about this controversy. Good morning.
[Brianna Keilar, Cnn Senior Political Correspondent:] Good morning to you, Carol. You know, I mean, health is always kind of fair game, right? I think this is something that comes up a lot in campaigns. And even though Hillary Clinton hasn't said that she's running yet, that's sort of the feel that you're getting. So health is fair game, but insinuating that someone may be brain damaged and we don't have a recording of what Rove said, but it doesn't necessarily seem to be fair game. According to the "New York Post" gossip page, page 6, he did say that she showed up after having this concussion wearing glasses that are only for people with a traumatic brain injury. And apparently he repeated that many times. So I think the sort of consensus on that is that it wasn't really fair game that he did it, but I also think a lot of people aren't surprised this kind of thing happens in politics. You know, and she's probably going to get a little more of it. One interesting thing, I did speak to a neurologist to say, hey, you know, let's do a little fact check on this. And he told me that she's no longer wearing these glasses. The ones you probably recognize, they kind of looked pretty thick. They had a prism on one side here. She was wearing them for the Benghazi hearing that, you know, we saw her. He said that a lot of times when patients have a concussion, their recovery is complete, and those symptoms are temporary. And he has no reason to believe, looking at the fact she's not wearing those glasses now, that that's not the case for her.
[Costello:] Well you know, it is fair to point to her health, right? And especially if she runs for president, but I don't know. Karl Rove, maybe he should just even Newt Gingrich said this was a ridiculous thing to say.
[Keilar:] You think he's just not concerned about her health and you know, he wants her to be in her best shape to run. I know, I sort of sense your skepticism on that, too. No, that's definitely fair game. But I think one of the things this highlights is, you know, health in a way can also be a proxy for talking about age. And I think that's going to be an issue for Hillary Clinton. She is going to be 69 come Election Day in 2016. That's old for a candidate. It really is second only to Ronald Reagan. So I think what you're going to see especially, Carol, when you look at so many of the Republicans who look like they might throw their hat in the ring, they're a lot younger. So it's possible that they may try to run an ageist campaign kind of against her. Even the idea of, like, old ideas versus new ideas.
[Costello:] Look at the things that they said about John McCain.
[Keilar:] Oh, sure.
[Costello:] People said awful things about him. So I guess you're right. This is just part of the game.
[Keilar:] Yes, you know, and they said it about Ronald Reagan, too. This is what some Republicans you talk to, hey, people tried to do this against Ronald Reagan. It didn't work. Republicans just need to kind of get on with this.
[Costello:] Brianna Keilar, thanks so much. We're just a few minutes away from the start of a dedication ceremony for the National September 11th Memorial Museum. The special ceremony starts at the top of the hour. Chris Cuomo and Ashleigh Banfield are in lower Manhattan near ground zero. We'll bring this ceremony to you live. NEWSROOM continues after a break.