Zimpapers Logo

Hillary Clinton

WASHINGTON. — Democrat Hillary Clinton said on Monday she could resume presidential campaigning in a couple of days after a bout of pneumonia that she initially had not believed was “that big a deal.”

Clinton’s health scare after she almost collapsed at an event on Sunday, causing her to cancel some campaign trips, revived concerns about a tendency toward secrecy that has dogged her campaign, and underscored perennial worries about the medical fitness of candidates for one of the world’s most demanding jobs.

“Well, it will be in the next couple of days . . . I just want to get this over and done with and get back on the trail as soon as possible,” she said in an interview on CNN on Monday night, adding she had ignored doctor’s orders to rest.

“I just didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal.”

The 68-year-old former First Lady was forced to abruptly leave a 9/11 memorial in New York on Sunday due to a medical episode, stirring speculation about her well-being.

Clinton’s physician, Dr Lisa Bardack, released a statement via the campaign and said she had pneumonia.

Her campaign, however, blamed the incident on her simply feeling “overheated.”

The conflicting reports brought a storm of attacks on the campaign from Republicans and Democrats alike, who demanded more clarity on Clinton’s health status.

Meanwhile, her husband former US President Bill Clinton has dismissed mounting health rumours about his wife, saying she is “doing fine”.

In an interview with CBS’s Charlie Rose that aired on Monday, Bill Clinton tried to put all the rumours to rest by stating that what happened to his wife was nothing but dehydration due to excessive campaign activity.

“Rarely, on more than one occasion, over the last many, many years, the same sort of things happened to her when she got severely dehydrated, and she’s worked like a demon, as you know, as secretary of state, as a senator, and in the years since,” the former president told Rose.

“She was even better last night before she went to sleep. She had a good night’s sleep. She just got dehydrated yesterday,” he continued.

He said neither him nor his doctors knew of any other major health issue that the former secretary of state was dealing with.

“Well, if it is (more serious) then it’s a mystery to me and all of her doctors,” Bill Clinton said.

Rumours about Hillary Clinton’s well-being have been haunting her ever since she suffered a blood clot in her brain in 2012.

Clinton herself tried to shed the rumours on Monday, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper that such episodes have happened “really only twice that I can recall.”

“You know, it is something that has occurred a few times over the course of my life, and I’m aware of it, and usually can avoid it,” she added.

A video of the Sunday incident showed a seemingly fainting Clinton stumbling on the sidewalk while her security detail almost dragged her into a van and drove her to her daughter’s house. — Reuters/Press TV.