WASHINGTON — Bill Clinton says his wife is no zombie — biting back at critics who raised questions about her age and health.
“First they said she faked her concussion, and now they say she is auditioning for her part on the ‘Walking Dead,’ ” Clinton quipped at a fiscal summit in DC.
He was responding to a report in The Post’s Page Six that GOP strategist Karl Rove suggested Hillary Rodham Clinton suffered brain damage after a fall in December 2012 that put her in the hospital.
“Look, she works out every week, she’s strong, she’s doing great. As far as I can tell, she’s in better shape than I am. She certainly seems to have more stamina now,” the ex-prez continued.
He joked that the questions were “just the beginning” of what his wife would face.
Rove later said that he didn’t call Hillary, 66, brain damaged, but was raising questions about her health while noting she wore vision-correcting glasses after she was hospitalized.
Bill Clinton’s remarks come after a blistering response from his wife’s team, which expressed outrage at Rove’s comments.
The former president also defended his wife’s actions as secretary of state regarding the 2012 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.
“In my opinion, Hillary did what she should have done,” Clinton said. “Secretaries of state never were involved directly in these security decisions . . . Most Americans don’t even know how many diplomatic personnel were killed when President Bush was president.”
Hillary didn’t mention the health issue or Benghazi during her own remarks in a separate speech at the American Jewish Committee in DC.
Instead, she repeatedly plugged her forthcoming memoir while carving out a tough stance on Iran.
“No deal is better than a bad deal,” she said regarding talks — which she helped facilitate as secretary of state — on Iran’s nuclear program.
She distanced herself from the ongoing negotiations and said she was skeptical that Iran would follow through.
“To get there, we will have to be tough, clear-eyed and ready to walk away and increase the pressure if need be,” she said.
The former first lady joked that the book would be “a light summer read that I’m sure will be great at the beach,” then delivered a dense foreign-policy speech centered around “Hard Choices” — the book’s title.