Hillary Clinton Admits Campaigning With Pneumonia Was a Mistake

Hillary Clinton has acknowledged that campaigning while suffering from pneumonia, which led to a public near-fainting episode in 2016, was a "mistake." The former secretary of state made the admission during a recent interview on the "On with Kara Swisher" podcast.

Clinton drew a parallel between her experience and that of James Talarico, a Texas Democratic Senate nominee who recently faced online rumors after a nine-day absence from the campaign trail due to illness. Clinton noted that critics portrayed her as being "on death's door" following the 2016 incident.

"They tested me and they said, ‘Oh, you’ve got pneumonia. You need to take like five or six days off,’" Clinton recounted. "I said, ‘I can’t do that.’ And my doctor said, ‘Well, that’s what you should do.’ And I thought, ‘Well, yeah, that’s what I should do.’ But I’m campaigning and I have to show up on 9/11 because it means a lot to me since, as you know, I was a senator [during the attacks]. So, I kept going, which was a mistake."

She further described the incident, recalling the video of her struggling to reach a vehicle to recover. "From my perspective, it worked because it was just papering social media, papering traditional media. ‘I was dying. I was lying about my health.’ This is from a guy who has never given us an honest medical report ever. Ever," she added, referencing then-candidate Donald Trump.

During the 2016 campaign, Clinton's team released a statement confirming she had pneumonia and felt "overheated" at the time of the 9/11 memorial event. Law enforcement sources at the scene described her as experiencing "clearly having some type of medical episode" as she was helped into a van. Her campaign faced criticism for not disclosing the pneumonia diagnosis earlier and for their subsequent handling of media inquiries.

Responding to the remarks, White House spokesman Davis Ingle stated, "President Trump’s sharpness, unmatched energy, and historic accessibility stand in stark contrast to what we saw during the last administration, when Democrats and the legacy media intentionally covered up Joe Biden’s serious mental and physical decline from the American people."

Ingle continued, "President Trump is working nonstop to solve problems and deliver on his promises, and he remains in excellent health. Meanwhile, Crooked Hillary Clinton is still whining about her spectacular 2016 election defeat. It’s time for Hillary to move on."