Fox News Senior Vice President Slams Rand Paul's Attacks On Hillary Clinton's Age

Neil Cavuto's Statement Comes After Many Previous Attempts By Fox To Scandalize Clinton's Age

Cavuto

Fox News host Neil Cavuto took aim at one of his own network's favorite smears against Hillary Clinton -- that she's too old to run for president.

Fox News has gone to great lengths to scandalize Clinton's age in the run up to 2016 -- Hosts have questioned whether being a grandmother would hurt Clinton politically, and when Fox contributor Karl Rove claimed Hillary Clinton suffered from brain damage after a fall, network figures ran defense for him and amplified the smear. One contributor even accused Clinton of needing plastic surgery before running for president. (Notably, both John McCain and Ronald Reagan, Fox favorites, were older when they ran for president than Clinton will be if she decides to enter the 2016 race.)

But this week Fox host Neil Cavuto broke from his colleagues, blasting a likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate for making the same smears against Clinton.

In a November 9 Politico interview detailing his 2016 presidential aspirations, Sen. Paul (R-KY) suggested that former Secretary of State Clinton, who is 67, may be too old to successfully campaign for president. Paul claimed that it's not “certain” Clinton would win the Democratic nomination because “it's a very taxing undertaking to go through. It's a rigorous physical ordeal, I think, to be able to campaign for the presidency.”

Cavuto called out Paul on the November 11 edition of Fox News' Your World, calling his criticism of Clinton “so base and so cheap.” Such “over-the-top-cheap shots” could undermine GOP efforts to expand their base, Cavuto said, noting the sexist nature of the attack and emphasizing that Paul has not criticized the age of other politicians like Reagan, Winston Churchill, and Paul's own father Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). Cavuto went on to highlight Clinton's achievements as Secretary of State, saying “I think it's fair to say that Hillary Clinton was up to the physical rigors of the job and then some.”