Both Trump, Clinton give more details on their health
The New York Times
With less than eight weeks until Election Day and pressure mounting for the candidates to give details about their health and medical histories, Donald Trump acknowledged on Wednesday that he was overweight and taking a cholesterolfighting drug, and Hillary Clinton elaborated on the circumstances that led to her contracting pneumonia and the medicine she was taking to recover.
Ms. Clinton’s doctor said that she “continues to improve” after contracting a “mild, noncontagious” form of pneumonia diagnosed Friday, two days before she grew dizzy and was seen losing her footing while leaving a ceremony for the 15th anniversary of the 9/11.
In a letter released by the Clinton campaign, the physician, Lisa Bardack, said she had evaluated Ms. Clinton several times since Sunday, including on Wednesday. “She is recovering well with antibiotics and rest,” Dr. Bardack said. “She continues to remain healthy and fit to serve as president of the United States.”
After Ms. Clinton left Sunday’s 9/11 ceremony early, a spokesman initially said only that she had felt overheated. But after video shot by an onlooker showed Secret Service agents helping a wobbly Ms. Clinton into a van, her campaign released a statement from Dr. Bardack saying that Ms. Clinton had pneumonia.
The health episode fueled long-simmering conservative conspiracy theories about Ms. Clinton’s health and provided a fresh line of attack for Mr. Trump, who has frequently questioned whether Ms. Clinton has the stamina to serve as commander in chief.
Although her campaign has dismissed such theories as bunk and even sexist, Ms. Clinton fed into them by ditching her press corps Sunday and not releasing timely information on her health or whereabouts.
Mr. Trump has provided scant information about his own. On Wednesday, he taped an appearance on Mehmet Oz’s daytime television show in which he discussed his health to some degree, including the results of a physical last week, according to people present for the taping and a clip released by the show’s publicists.
But little information was available about what was said on the show, which will be broadcast today, other than that Mr. Trump, 70, said he was taking regular doses of a statin, a drug that lowers cholesterol, and gave his weight as 236 pounds.
At about 6-foot-2, Mr. Trump would have a body mass index of 30.3. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute defines obesity as a body mass index of 30 or more, and overweight as 25 to 29.9.
NBC News reported that Dr. Oz pronounced Mr. Trump “slightly overweight.”
Earlier in the week, Mr. Trump said he would soon release new medical records and discuss the results of his physical on Dr. Oz’s show. Early Wednesday, his aides reversed course, saying that he would not discuss the physical even with Dr. Oz, a prolific Republican donor. But during the taping, Mr. Trump theatrically produced what he described as the results of his physical and allowed Dr. Oz to review them, according to the brief clip that the show released.
In the letter released by the Clinton campaign, Dr. Bardack said that she had examined Ms. Clinton, 68, on Friday for a prolonged, allergy-related cough, discovered “small right middlelobe pneumonia,” put her on antibiotics and advised her “to rest and modify her schedule.” At the 9/11 ceremony, she said, Ms. Clinton “became overheated and dehydrated,” but was “rehydrated and recovering nicely” later that day.
Ms. Clinton planned to return to the campaign trail today.
Dr. Bardack’s letter also cast some new light on the persistent cough that Ms. Clinton complained of before she was found to have pneumonia. Dr. Bardack said she had examined Ms. Clinton on Sept. 2 after Ms. Clinton experienced a lowgrade fever, congestion and fatigue. She prescribed antibiotics and rest, but Ms. Clinton continued to travel, and over several days, “her congestion worsened and she developed a cough,” Dr. Bardack wrote.
That Monday, Ms. Clinton had an extended coughing attack while trying to deliver a Labor Day speech in Cleveland.
The details released Wednesday included that Ms. Clinton has been taking the antibiotic Levaquin, “as well as B-12 as needed.”
Ms. Clinton’s running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, also released a doctor’s letter Wednesday, saying he was in excellent health and worked out three times a week. Brian Monahan, the attending physician to Congress, said Mr. Kaine’s cholesterol and blood lipids were elevated. The upper chamber of the left side of Mr. Kaine’s heart is enlarged.
After her coughing fit in Cleveland, Ms. Clinton casually told reporters on her campaign plane that she was taking more antihistamines.
At a Wednesday rally in Canton, Ohio, Mr. Trump noted the room was hot.
“You think Hillary would be able to stand up here for an hour and do this?” he asked. “I don’t think so.”
And amid their presidential nominee’s illness, Democrats are feeling queasy about Ms. Clinton’s narrowing national lead over Mr. Trump.
A new national poll by Quinnipiac University shows Ms. Clinton and Mr. Trump are virtually tied when third-party candidates are included in the race.
Earlier Wednesday, a new poll by Bloomberg Politics showed that Mr. Trump is ahead by 5 percentage points in the key battleground state of Ohio.
But meanwhile on Wednesday, Mr. Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, was ignoring questions about whether he will release his medical records.
Also, before his Canton speech, Mr. Trump was cut off, chastised and then heckled after he attacked Ms. Clinton during what was supposed to be a speech on helping where the government had failed the people of Flint, Mich.
And in the meantime, new questions have arisen about Mr. Trump’s charitable activities in the wake of a Washington Post investigation of the Donald J. Trump Foundation that shows the foundation is filled with other people’s money.