Clinton camp to release more health info
Hillary Clinton’s campaign, responding to enormous political pressure after she had to be helped into a van Sunday — and after waiting hours before explaining that she was suffering from pneumonia — said Monday that it would release more medical information about her this week.
A spokesman, Brian Fallon, said on MSNBC that the campaign was working with Clinton’s doctor on a fuller release of medical information, and that those records would show she had “no other undisclosed condition.”
The campaign’s shift — it has until now resisted requests for the more comprehensive discussion of her medical history that is traditional for presidential nominees — came after Clinton was videotaped being helped into a van by Secret Service agents Sun- day, her feet dragging on the ground, while departing early from the Sept. 11 anniversary ceremony in Manhattan.
The manner in which Clinton’s illness became public revived concerns among supporters and criticism among her detractors about her seemingly reflexive tendency to hunker down and hoard information, often citing a “zone of privacy,” when she senses a possible political threat.
Clinton actually had been given a diagnosis of pneumonia Friday morning. But she said nothing about it late Friday, when she eagerly told reporters about her plans to defeat the Islamic State, called for a rethinking of the Obama administration’s approach to North Korea and ridiculed Donald Trump’s praise for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
Even Sunday morning, when reporters learned Clinton had departed early from the ceremony for the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, a campaign aide explained only that Clinton had been “overheated.”
It took until more than five hours after the startling video surfaced online — shot by an onlooker, showing an ailing Clinton being helped into a van — before her campaign released a statement from her physician, Dr. Lisa R. Bardack, saying Clinton had been told she had pneumonia and put on antibiotics Friday. The statement said Clinton had become dehydrated and overheated at ground zero.
The sequence of events quickly intensified pressure on both Clinton, 68, and Trump, 70, to be more forthcoming with information about their health and medical histories. But it has also reinforced a central vulnerability for Clinton that has nothing to do with physical stamina.
Allies and critics alike drew parallels between her handling of her illness and, among other things, her decision to use a private email server for official business when she was secretary of state.
“Antibiotics can take care of pneumonia. What’s the cure for an unhealthy penchant for privacy that repeatedly creates unnecessary problems?” David Axelrod, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, wrote on Twitter.
Matthew Dowd, a former strategist for George W. Bush, advised “a miracle drug called transparency.”
On Monday, Clinton’s campaign acknowledged that it had come up short in providing information about her illness, though it insisted that she was still a model of transparency.
“We could have done better yesterday, but it is a fact that public knows more about H.R.C. than any nominee in history,” Jennifer Palmieri, a campaign spokeswoman, wrote on Twitter in response to Axelrod’s criticism.