The Democratic presidential nominee says she is taking a few days off and feels much better.
Hillary Clinton said Monday night that she’s feeling much better and she didn’t disclose her diagnosis with pneumonia last week because, “I just didn’t think it was that big a deal.”
The Democratic presidential nominee phoned into Anderson Cooper’s CNN broadcast and answered tough questions about why she kept her illness secret. Clinton stumbled Sunday while being helped into a van after becoming ill at New York’s 9/11 memorial service.
“Did you pass out?” Cooper asked. “I felt dizzy. I did lose my balance for a minute,” the former senator, first lady and secretary of state replied.
Once she had some water and cooled off in the vehicle’s air conditioning, “I felt fine,” she said. Clinton went to her daughter's apartment afterward, where she visited her grandchildren, she told Cooper.
The nominee was criticized for failing to reveal she had pneumonia – something her campaign didn’t disclose until hours after Sunday’s near fall.
"I'm feeling so much better, and obviously, I should have gotten some rest sooner. I probably would have been better off if I pulled my schedule Friday,” Clinton said. “But like a lot of people, I thought I could keep going and power through it, and that didn't go so well."
Her campaign announced Monday that Clinton’s health records would be released soon and acknowledged the situation could have been handled more adeptly.
Clinton said she ignored her doctor’s advice to rest when she learned Friday that she had pneumonia.
Read" Listening In? Hillary Clinton Accused of Wearing Earpiece During Live TV Forum
"I was just incredibly committed to being at the memorial as a senator on 9/11. It was incredibly personal to me, and I could feel how hot and humid it was. I felt overheated. I decided that I did need to leave,” she said.
When pressed by Cooper about why she didn’t immediately say she had pneumonia, and suggested it showed a lack of transparency in her campaign, Clinton fought back.
“Oh my goodness, Anderson. Compare everything you know about me with my opponent,” she said, citing GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s failure to disclose his tax returns.
“I think it’s time he met the same level of disclosure that I have for years,” she said.
Clinton said she would be back on the campaign trail in a few days, after she belatedly followed her doctor’s advice to take it easy.
Watch: Donald Trump Responds to Hillary Clinton's Pneumonia: 'It's Quite Sad'
