Chuck Todd Calls Karl Rove's 'Dangerous, Tricky' 'Brain Damage' Statement 'A Little Sexist'

On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday, MSNBC host and NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd weighed in on Karl Rove’s alleged statements about potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s health, in particular speculation she may have suffered “brain damage.”

Todd warned Rove this could backfire and noted that Clinton would be the same age as Ronald Reagan when he ran for president in 1980. However, Todd also added this element of Rove’s critique could also come off as “sexist.”

“I am curious,” Todd said. “You know, it’s amazing the conspiracy those are I heard yesterday. Rove did this, he’s doing the old LBJ here – well, you know make them deny that they have brain damage. Throw it out there and then say, ‘Oh, I didn’t say brain damage, brain damage, brain damage, you know, but I’m trying to get it into the ether.’ And then I’ve talked to other folks who say that Rove truly was sort of shell-shocked that that got out there. That wasn’t what he meant.”

“And he didn’t spin is very well, no,” Todd continued. “Look, the fact is she’s the same age, she’s going to be the same age as Reagan was. If you’re going to go down this road and try to claim she’s going to have health issues, and things of that nature, then you may have to be throwing your own guy, Ronald Reagan under the bus a little bit. So I think this is a dangerous, tricky road to go down. And as we saw, with Rove, you go down this road, and you stumble down this road, I mean, I agree, at any point, any presidential candidate has deputy release their health records. I don’t care if they’re 45 or 70. At the end of the day, I think it’s important, the American public wants to know. They want to make their judgment about who the running mate is, things like that. So that is fair game. But to sit there and say it only really applies to her. And you go down that road, it’s going to look a little sexist if you’re not careful and it’s going to backfire.”

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