The UK-based Sunday Express, as well as the New York Times, both report that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s personal physician diagnosed her last week with pneumonia — and that is why she became “overheated” and collapsed Sunday just after leaving memorial ceremonies marking 9/11 in New York.
According to a statement reported Sunday night in both papers, Lisa Bardack, Clinton’s doctor said: “Secretary Clinton has been experiencing a cough related to allergies. On Friday, during follow up evaluation of her prolonged cough, she was diagnosed with pneumonia.
“She was put on antibiotics, and advised to rest and modify her schedule.
“While at this morning’s event, she became overheated and dehydrated. I have just examined her and she is now re-hydrated and recovering nicely.”
The Clinton campaign, meanwhile, issued a statement, saying: “Secretary Clinton attended the September 11th Commemoration Ceremony for just an hour and thirty minutes this morning to pay her respects and greet some of the families of the fallen. During the ceremony, she felt overheated so departed to go to her daughter’s apartment, and is feeling much better.”
Clinton herself was able to walk out of her daughter Chelsea Clinton’s building in Manhattan at midday Sunday, more than an hour after aides rushed her there following a “medical episode.”
Here’s a video of Clinton bright and chipper after ‘resting’ at her daughter’s apartment:
Here is Hillary Clinton leaving Chelsea’s apartment. (A little girl came up to give her a hug) pic.twitter.com/VreSXmT1Yh
— Liz Kreutz (@ABCLiz) September 11, 2016
About 90 minutes into the morning ceremony Clinton said she felt unwell while marking the 9/11 Al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center in New York. She and her entourage quietly left at around 9:30 am, just prior to the ceremonial reading of names of those who died at the site.
A video surfaced shortly after, showing her walking unsteadily towards her motorcade with a female aide bracing her, one arm under her left elbow and forearm. Another female aide was carrying her bag. The video showed the candidate leaned up against a pillar at the curb, clearly waiting for aides to help her into the car. It was obvious she couldn’t make it there on her own – in fact, she could barely keep herself standing at all.
As a female aide tried to help her take a step, Clinton’s legs buckled and she slumped. About half a dozen male Secret Service security personnel suddenly, quickly streamed in to lift the candidate and bodily place her in the car as others blocked as much visual access to the sight as possible.
The car zoomed off, and media communication was cut off instantaneously. No cameras or reporters were allowed to follow, nor were any questions answered for more than an hour. No one was told where Clinton went or why.
She later turned up at her daughter’s residence in Manhattan, and well over an hour later, walked out of the building on to the sidewalk waving and smiling, and telling those gathered, “I’m feeling great. It’s a beautiful day in New York.”
But if Clinton is in otherwise good health and “recovering nicely,” why did she rush home to Chappaqua?
Up to this point, Clinton supporters and the anti-Trump movement have worked exceptionally hard to make the point that a fit of coughing (which Clinton has had more than once) and a history of cerebral blood clots (she has had at least two) should not be enough to sideline a candidate.
Calls for both candidates to release their medical records – and the seeming reluctance of both to do so – have given credence to the claims of these supporters that Clinton’s medical history may not be any more of an issue than Trump’s, since it’s impossible to know what he’s hiding either.
But taken in context of Sunday’s events, that no longer holds true. Trump has never folded while on the campaign trail, and we have watched Clinton fade more than once. Life in the White House is not the bowl of cherries one might believe it to be, and taking one’s place at the desk in the Oval Office is, at the best of times, little short of entering a shark tank without a harpoon or a protective cage.
Campaign officials flatly refused to reveal whether Clinton saw a doctor after her “medical episode.” But it’s obvious that if she didn’t, she certainly should have. And it’s well past due time for both candidates — neither of whom is any kind of spring chicken — to release their full medical records and have done with it. The American people also need to consider what kind of a president would be foolish enough to avoid a doctor in order to stay in the electoral race – or just as bad, what kind of president would hide whatever health issues he or she might have from his own people, in order to get into office or stay there.
