Republican strategist Karl Rove said Wednesday that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) “certainly” came off as thin-skinned when a stretch of testy interviews followed the rollout of his presidential campaign.
Paul’s problems started when he accused NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie of “editorializing,” which called to mind a February interview in which he shushed CNBC anchor Kelly Evans. The senator then got “testy” with an Associated Press reporter inquiring about abortion bans and abruptly walked out of an interview with The Guardian.
Fox News host Neil Cavuto asked Rove whether he thought the senator was “thin-skinned.”
“Certainly would look like that from the first couple of weeks,” Rove responded.
The GOP strategist praised Paul’s campaign rollout in Louisville, Ky. and said the senator delivered “a great message.”
“But the two weeks after that in which he showed a prickliness when ask questions by the press I don’t think served him well,” Rove continued.
He added that bringing out Paul’s wife, Kelley, on the campaign trail was the “right answer” to Paul’s problems with the media. Kelley Paul defended her husband from charges of sexism while she made the TV rounds to promote her new book “True and Constant Friends.”
“That is not who Rand is — at all,” she said on “Fox and Friends,” adding that her husband, an ophthalmologist, had worked with female surgeons for years.
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