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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Hillary Clinton Talks To CNN About Her Health; Clinton: We Will Release More Information On My Health; Trump Slams Clinton In North Carolina; Pence Declines To Call David Duke "Deplorable"; Keeping Reporters At A Distance; When Politicians Get Sick. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired September 12, 2016 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:00:56] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks for joining us for the second hour of "360".
Hillary Clinton says she's feeling better and that she didn't think her pneumonia diagnosis was that big a deal and just wanted to power through it. She's now taking doctors' orders and resting at her home in Chappaqua, New York.
I spoke with her at length on the phone in the last hour. Here's that conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, thank you very much for calling in. There's a lot of folks who are very worried about you. How are you feeling?
HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Oh, thank you, Anderson. I'm feeling so much better and obviously I should have gotten some rest sooner. I probably would have been better off if I'd just pulled down my schedule on Friday. But like a lot of people, I just thought I could keep going forward and power through it and obviously that didn't work out so well.
COOPER: Let me ask you, your husband said tonight in an interview with Charlie Rose, he said, "Rarely on more than one occasion over the last many, many years, the same sort of things happened to her," meaning you "when she got severely dehydrated." Can you say how many times over the course of the last, say, five years you've been dehydrated and gotten dizzy? I know you passed out, hit your head back in 2012 which led to the concussion. How often has this happened?
CLINTON: Oh, I think 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.
What happened yesterday was that I just was incredibly committed to being at the memorial, as a senator on 9/11, this is incredibly personal to me. And I could, you know, feel how hot and humid it was. I felt overheated. I decided that I did need to leave.
And as soon as I got into the air-conditioned van, I cooled off, I got some water and very quickly I felt better. So I felt fine, but I'm now taking my doctor's advice which was given to me on Friday that I ignored to just take some time to get over pneumonia completely.
COOPER: You know, a lot of people have obviously seen the video of you being helped into the van. Did you actually faint? Did you actually pass out or lose consciousness?
CLINTON: No, I didn't. I felt dizzy and I did lose my balance for a minute, but once I got in, once I could sit down, once I could cool off, once I had some water, I immediately started feeling better. And my daughter lives nearby so I went over to her apartment and, you know, spent time with her and my grandchildren which, you know ...
COOPER: Right.
CLINTON: ... you know, the best medicine for anything in my life.
COOPER: A lot has been made over the course of the last week or so about the cough you've been struggling with. You blamed it on allergies, joked at one point you were allergic to Donald Trump. Was that cough actually pneumonia related and not, in fact, allergy related?
CLINTON: Well, it sure seemed like it was an allergy because I've had allergies, seasonal allergies off and on, and it does come with a cough, you know, I've got lots of examples, you know, in the spring and in the fall getting a bit of a coughing fit then it dissipates.
What happened this time, though, was it didn't dissipate and that's why when I got off the road on Friday, I did go to see my doctor and that's when I was diagnosed with pneumonia.
And the funniest thing that happened to me on Sunday, wasn't a funny day, after all, but this was kind of humorous, is I got to the memorial, I saw my friend and former colleague, Chuck Schumer, and the first thing he says to me is I've had pneumonia and I've been resting for five days. And I looked at him and he said, "You know, that's so funny, I've just been told I have pneumonia." So apparently, there's something to this that's going around.
COOPER: Yeah.
CLINTON: And I've since been contacted by, you know, a number of people who've told me they have had it, they've gotten over it.
[21:05:02] COOPER: Well, let me ask you about that because David Axelrod ...
CLINTON: Right.
COOPER: ... was very critical of the way that you and your campaign handled sharing your diagnosis with the public. He tweeted, "Antibiotics can take care of pneumonia, what's the cure for an unhealthy penchant for privacy that repeatedly creates unnecessary problems? Why not just say on Friday as you said apparently to Senator Schumer on Sunday, you know, I have pneumonia, folks, I'm going to power through it. Why keep it a secret?
CLINTON: Well, I just didn't think it was going to be that big a deal. You know, I know Chuck said today he didn't tell anybody. It's just the kind of thing that if it happens to you and you're a busy, active person, you keep moving forward.
And, you know, I think it's fair to say, Anderson, that people know more about me than almost anyone in public life, they've got 40 years of my tax returns, tens of thousands of e-mails, a detailed medical letter/report. All kinds of personal details. And, you know, it's just so -- it's so strange that with all of that information out there, and as soon as it became clear I couldn't power through, we, you know, we said what was going on.
COOPER: Yeah, but when you ...
CLINTON: Donald Trump is ...
COOPER: I'm sorry.
CLINTON: What?
COOPER: When you left your daughter's apartment, you said you were feeling great. Obviously you ...
CLINTON: I did. I felt -- I felt really good, but that didn't mean that I shouldn't rest. So when I -- you know, I did. I mean, I felt 100 percent better.
COOPER: But doesn't your handling of this, and your campaign's -- you know, their refusal to acknowledge what happened until really after that video was circulated, confirms suspicion of some voters that you're not transparent or trustworthy?
CLINTON: Oh, my goodness, Anderson. You know, compare everything you know about me with my opponent. I think it's time he met the same level of disclosure that I have for years. You know, you've got a medical report on me that meets the same standard as Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. Donald Trump's doctor said he'd be the healthiest president in history. That's just not even serious.
And I've released nearly 40 years of tax returns. He hasn't released one. This is a man with unknown numbers of partners and investors who says he's doing 120 foreign deals. The American people deserve to know what he's up to and what he is hiding.
So if we weren't -- if we weren't fast enough, you know, I've talked to my staff, we, you know, take responsibility for that. But the information is out there. You can't say the same thing about Donald Trump.
COOPER: Brian Fallon from your campaign said your campaign is going to release more of your records. I know -- as you know probably, Donald Trump has said he's now had a physical I believe on Friday and that he's going to release that soon. Will you be releasing more details about your medical history and do you know, you know, how detailed it's going to be, how far it's going to go back? Is it going to be more about what happened in 2012 when you fell and hit your head? Do you know how far it will go?
CLINTON: Well, we're going to be releasing more information, and I think it's fair to say we've already met the standard of disclosure of past presidential candidates like Mitt Romney and President Obama. We'll add more information, but I've already released information about my health in this campaign, as well as nearly 40 years of tax returns. We've already met a high standard of transparency and we know the least about Donald Trump of any candidate in recent American history. Know virtually nothing about his business entanglements, his foreign investors. You know, it's really past time for him to be held to the same standard, not just as me, but of everybody else who has sought this job.
COOPER: The final question, I know both your supporters and probably those who are opposed to you want to know the answer to is, how quickly, when are you going to get back on the campaign trail?
CLINTON: Well, it will be the next couple of days. Obviously, I was supposed to rest five days. That's what they told me on Friday, and I didn't follow that very wise advice. So I just want to get this over and done with and get back on the trail as soon as possible.
COOPER: Well, Secretary Clinton, we wish you the best and a speedy recovery. Thanks to you so much for speaking with us.
CLINTON: Thank you. Good to talk to you, Anderson. Thanks a lot.
COOPER: Secretary Clinton in her first interview since the incident yesterday.
A lot to talk about. With me now, former Mitt Romney campaign adviser, Stuart Stevens, former Trump campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, Clinton supporter and National MoveOn.org spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre and CNN chief political analyst, Gloria Borger.
Karine, we haven't spoken to you about is yet, do you think this has lasting repercussions for Secretary Clinton? Obviously, it's a distraction, some of the Clinton campaign certainly does not want, it does play into, you know, some of the suggestions and narrative that we've been hearing from Donald Trump and the Donald Trump campaign. Does it have lasting repercussions?
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, MOVEON.ORG NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON: Yeah. I think it has a -- it's a distraction, right, but no lasting effect.
[21:09:58] Look, she has a common illness that five million to 10 million Americans get every day, right, and it's a -- in a short term, she'll get over this and she'll move on.
COOPER: But isn't it more about how the campaign handled it and not disseminating the information even on that day after people knew something was going on?
JEAN-PIERRE: Look, the campaign has said themselves like, "Look, you know, they could have handled this a lot better." And they're right, right? They could have done that.
But look, one thing I wanted to point out, Anderson, you had Sanjay Gupta in the 8:00 hour. And he actually was able to list out all of the medications that Hillary Clinton takes and the reason why is because she actually put out a medical report. Are we able to do that for Trump? No. We can't. Because what he put is actually has no substance. So there is a little bit of a double standard here.
COOPER: Corey, the Clinton campaign certainly is trying to switch this to focus on Donald Trump, and the disparities between what the Clinton campaign has released and what, you know, their view of what Donald Trump has released.
COREY LEWANDOWSKI, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Look, what the Clinton campaign doesn't want to talk about is that a private fund- raiser on Friday night, she called the people who support Donald Trump a basket of deplorables. You know, that's 14 million people on the primary.
COOPER: She did apologize and the fact that she said not half, not half.
LEWANDOWSKI: OK. Which means -- but it's a gross generalization. And if this story wasn't dominating the news coverage right now, which is her almost passing out at the 9/11 memorial, that's what she'd be talking about today.
And really, you know, that's akin to Mitt Romney's 47 percent statement that was made four years ago and what it is, is, you know, it's a gross generalization, it's something that really isn't appropriate.
So I think, you know, as much as the Hillary Clinton campaign doesn't want to talk about the health issue, I think they'd rather be talking about this issue than the statement she made on Friday night about those people who are supporting the Trump campaign.
JEAN-PIERRE: It's not the same. The 40 percent was basically a narrative that told how Mitt Romney was rich and disconnected, right? It was about the wealthy. What she talked about, deplorables, was about the bigotry of Donald Trump. How that narrative is, relates to him.
Look, so, look, let's be clear here, there is an element, right, of Donald Trump supporters that are deplorable, right?
LEWANDOWSKI: Well, that's egregious. They're not.
JEAN-PIERRE: No. They are.
LEWANDOWSKI: You know what?
JEAN-PIERRE: They are. When you're talking about getting David Duke support ...
LEWANDOWSKI: He doesn't have David Duke support. He doesn't want David Duke support.
JEAN-PIERRE: When you have people at his rallies who are talking about white power, we've seen this footage saying, yelling white power. When you have confederate flag ...
LEWANDOWSKI: You have at a Hillary Clinton rally directly behind her the father of the largest mass murder in the State of Florida's history.
JEAN-PIERRE: That, you know, what? That was one ...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Let me bring in Stuart and Gloria. Stuart, I mean clearly, this has taken the attention away from what Hillary Clinton said on Friday about half the Trump supporters being in this basket of deplorables.
STUART STEVENS, FORMER ROMNEY CAMPAIGN ADVISER: Well, it's an eloquent theory that she got sick to take the ...
COOPER: Well, I'm not saying -- no, of course not. It wasn't intentional, but ...
STEVENS: I -- you know, listen, campaigns usually aren't affected by these stories one way or the other. We talk about the 47 percent story. It was a big story. There's really no evidence when you look at if it affected the campaign's -- if it hadn't happened and Mitt Romney would have won.
You know, when you get in these campaigns, you have to really treat it the same way that NFL quarterbacks treat throwing interceptions. You throw interceptions. You just play the next play. No campaign doesn't make mistakes. And it's just a matter of pushing through and being able to try to communicate with as many voters as you can why you think you should be president. I don't think these little things are going to play that much difference.
COOPER: Gloria, to Stuart's point, and I think it's an important one. You know, we are all focused on the minutia of what's happening every second because this is ...
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.
COOPER: You know, I have no life, this is what I do. I'm not going to speak to everybody else on the panel.
BORGER: You can.
COOPER: You seem to have more lives than I do.
BORGER: You can. COOPER: But, you know, most people in the country, you know, have real jobs unlike me and are out there working hard and have, you know, kids and a million things they got to take care of and are not following the minutia like I am and like many of us are. So, I guess to Stuart's point, does this really matter?
BORGER: I think what it does is it affirms how you feel or don't feel about somebody. I don't think Hillary Clinton's bout with pneumonia in and of itself is going to change one vote at all. But I do believe that if you believe she has a penchant for secrecy and wants to keep things from the American public and hides things and is devious, you will say this is part of that whole narrative.
And, you know, the most interesting thing to me about all of this is that we don't have Donald Trump out there talking about Hillary Clinton's health which he's been talking about the entire campaign. Instead, when there is evidence that she had a health issue, the pneumonia, and that the press was kept away from knowing about it, what is he talking about?
[21:15:00] He's talking about what works for him which is what Corey was just talking about and -- which is the basket of deplorables because that is what will motivate his base to get out and vote.
So, you know, at this point ...
COOPER: Well, also it's the age-old, you know, political idea of when the other campaign is stumbling, you just step out of the way. Allow them to kind of, you know ...
BORGER: Yes.
COOPER: ... continue to stumble. You don't need to add to it because, in fact, you could, you know, stop the stumble.
We got to take a quick break.
BORGER: Right.
COOPER: We're going to have more with the panel ahead. Donald Trump wrapped up a rally in North Carolina earlier tonight. As we mentioned, he was slamming Clinton on her comment about some of his supporters. What he said tonight, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Breaking news this evening. Donald Trump's running mate Mike Pence was asked by Wolf Blitzer if he considers David Duke a white nationalist and Trump supporter deplorable or somebody who supports Trump deplorable. Pence wouldn't go there. He said he's not a name calling business. He also said the Trump campaign doesn't want Duke's support.
Jim Acosta tonight reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Donald Trump didn't have to dig deep into his basket of attacks today on Hillary Clinton.
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: After months of hiding from the press, Hillary Clinton has revealed her true thoughts. That was her true thoughts. She revealed herself to be a person who looks down on the proud citizens of our country, as subjects for her.
ACOSTA: The GOP nominee devoted a huge chunk of his speech to a military audience today to a line Clinton delivered Friday when she referred to Trump supporters as a basket of deplorables at a fund- raiser in New York.
CLINTON: You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I called the basket of deplorables, the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.
ACOSTA: By the next day, the damage was done and Clinton quickly backpedaled releasing a statement saying "I regret saying half. That was wrong." But she added "It's deplorable that Trump has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices."
[21:20:11] BRIAN FALLON, CLINTON CAMPAIGN PRESS SECRETARY: We cannot treat Donald Trump as a normal presidential candidate. The idea that somebody is running a campaign that is engaging in this type of hate- filled demagoguery in 2016 is deplorable.
ACOSTA: Now Trump is accusing Clinton of slandering more than just the people backing his campaign.
TRUMP: She divides people into baskets as though they were objects, not human beings. You cannot run for president if you have such contempt in your heart for the American voter. And she does. You can't lead this nation if you have such a low opinion for its citizens.
ACOSTA: The Trump campaign is also using the moment to power new ads in four key battleground states.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know what's deplorable? Hillary Clinton viciously demonizing hardworking people like you.
ACOSTA: Clinton's comment instantly drew comparisons to Mitt Romney's infamous gaffe from four years ago when he slammed supporters of President Obama as the 47 percent who don't pay taxes. The defining moment that painted Romney as out of touch.
MITT ROMNEY, (R) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them."
ACOSTA: But Democrats counter Clinton had good reason to cast some Trump supporters as deplorables. Noting the confederate flag on display at a Trump rally over the summer. Not to mention the GOP nominee's own comment on Mexican immigrants.
TRUMP: They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists and some, I assume, are good people.
ACOSTA: The Trump campaign argues Clinton's remarks were much more revealing.
KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: She's reading scripted words, and then they call it a gaffe. It wasn't a gaffe. She had said it before.
ACOSTA: But history shows voters can look past candidates' tone deaf moments. Barack Obama's comments on bitter voters who cling to their guns and faith didn't cost him the election in 2008.
PRES. BARACK OBAMA, (D) UNITED STATES: It's not surprising then that they get bitter. They cling to guns or religion, or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Jim, you were at Trump's rally earlier tonight. How did he address Clinton's comments at this evening's event?
ACOSTA: Yeah, Anderson, Donald Trump is certainly latched onto this basket of deplorables comment. He accused Hillary Clinton at this rally here in Asheville, North Carolina, of running a campaign of hatred.
At one point during the rally, he brought some of his supporters on stage to say they're not deplorable. He did go too far at one point saying that Hillary Clinton has accused these people of not being American. She did not ever say that.
And we should point out, Anderson, there was some deplorable behavior on display here. There was a man, a Trump supporter in the crowd who was punching and choking one protester. That man from what we understand was not arrested by authorities, although the protesters were led out of this venue. Anderson?
COOPER: Jim Acosta. Jim, thank you very much.
Back with the panel. You know, Stuart, as much as the Trump campaign or frankly the media wants to press Hillary Clinton on transparency, she is obviously now trying to kind of use what happened to her and point to Donald Trump and say, "Well, what about him? I'm being held essentially to a different standard.
STEVENS: Look, I think the litmus test here is going to be the tax returns. Governor Pence has released his. It really is beholden upon a modern candidate to release some tax returns. You have no idea what Donald Trump's investments are or his current income.
And I just -- the sort of common sense of it is what people come back to. Donald Trump is someone who's not afraid of saying controversial things or doing controversial things. What is it in his tax returns that he finds so disqualifying that he won't release?
So I really don't see how the Trump campaign can win an argument on transparency until they do that. Now, if Donald Trump walked out tomorrow and release five years of tax returns or even two years of tax returns, I think that would give them sort of more of a standing to make this case.
COOPER: But Gloria, if Donald Trump did that, I mean, just -- I get the rationale, the argument that he should do that, but if he did that, it's going to be a story for a week and can the Trump campaign afford that -- the focus to be on his returns and whatever they show or do not show for, you know, with so close before election day? I mean, right now, it doesn't seem like he -- that he's wavering or is bothered by the pressure.
BORGER: Well, you know, the longer they would wait, the harder it gets obviously and of course it depends on what's in them. Usually campaigns try to release it a bit earlier rather than later, and, but the question is, if you don't have anything to hide, don't hide it.
[21:25:02] You know, there is no law that says that if you're under audit that you can't release your returns. Richard Nixon did it, for example.
And I think so long as Donald Trump refuses to do that, Hillary Clinton has a legitimate right to raise questions, all kind kinds of questions about him, about his transparency, about his charitable giving, about his income, about, you know, all kinds of things that voters may want to know about. I know Congressman Pence, Governor Pence, said to Wolf Blitzer today that voters don't care about that, but once they know what's in them, then they might care about it. And so the longer they wait, the harder it is for Donald Trump to ...
COOPER: Yeah.
BORGER: ... to do it.
COOPER: Corey, you and I talked about this in the last hour, but I mean, again, if you believe the -- my taxes are under audit argument, therefore I'm not going to release them. According to his own attorneys from 2002 to 2008, those returns have already been audited, the audit is done. Why not release just those?
LEWANDOWSKI: Look, I think he's been very clear about releasing his information that's required when you run for president which is the personal financial disclosure statement which many pundits said he would d never fill out because it would show he's not actually worth what he said he's worth. And what it actually showed was he has 50 entities that are worth more than $50 million a piece.
But, you know, the one thing I do want to touch on, it's very important, this is Barack Obama's statement. We need a president who's fighting for all Americans, not one who writes off nearly half of the country. Right? This goes directly to Hillary Clinton. We want a president who's fighting for all Americans. This notion of deplorables which is what is important to talk about, she's not fighting for everybody. She wants to be a president for some of the country. And this is exactly what Barack Obama was against. That's why he beat her eight years ago and that's why Donald Trump's going to beat her now.
COOPER: Do you get -- you know, actually, let's play -- well, actually let me ask you first before we play this. Do you -- do you give her credit at all for apologizing just for saying, you know what, not half, I was wrong to say half.
LEWANDOWSKI: Look, I think she should apologize, but, you know, does that mean it's a quarter? What is it? I mean, again, Kellyanne Conway was very clear about this. These were scripted remarks. This wasn't an adlib. This wasn't, you know, off the cuff. This was designed to be very specific at a private fund-raiser where she's spending most of her time and maybe she didn't know it was going to be broadcast, maybe she didn't think it was a big deal. She didn't even understand the backlash until the following day.
COOPER: Karine, I mean, obviously they have come forward. The next day she said, "Look, I shouldn't have said half." But she's sticking by this notion of deplorables.
JEAN-PIERRE: Look, here's the reality. 60 percent of Trump voters believe that the President was born not in this country, right? This is what Donald Trump used to foray his self into the political -- it's true. It's true. This is what the polls say. In 2011, that's what Donald Trump used to get into the political landscape. And so this is -- this is the reality that we're in now. 35 percent of voters believe Trump is a racist. 56 percent of voters believe that he has negative feelings about minorities, women and immigrants.
LEWANDOWSKI: And Trump is still winning independents by 20 points, Trump is still winning married women by, you know, 10 points. He's still winning -- he's still continuing to win this election because Hillary Clinton is so untrustworthy. She talked today in your interview ...
JEAN-PIERRE: They're both -- I mean, that's not ...
LEWANDOWSKI: ... about e-mails. It was amazing to me that she raised that issue. She said people have read my e-mails. Well, they've read not the 15,000 she withheld ...
COOPER: They certainly both have issues on the question of trust ...
JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah, that's not even the argument there. And look, the question that I have is when is Donald Trump going to disavow the people, the element, right, in his campaign and his supporters that are deplorable? The people that we just talked about. The David Dukes of the world.
LEWANDOWSKI: Mike Pence did that today.
JEAN-PIERRE: The white supremacists.
LEWANDOWSKI: Mike Pence did that today and Donald Trump has done it on multiple occasions.
JEAN-PIERRE: No. No, no, no.
LEWANDOWSKI: So unless you're calling Mike Pence a racist, which I don't think you are. Unless you're making a statement about Mike Pence ...
JEAN-PIERRE: I'm not owing. I never said that. I never said that.
LEWANDOWSKI: ... Mike Pence said today, we don't want David Duke ...
JEAN-PIERRE: I said that David Duke who is a former grand wizard of the KKK that terrorized African-American ...
COOPER: But he has said he ...
JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah, but he is deplorable. That's the difference. David Duke is actually deplorable. The KKK is deplorable. White supremacy -- Robert Byrd apologized. He apologized.
LEWANDOWSKI: So, it's OK to say I'm sorry.
COOPER: We got to leave it there. Everybody, thank you.
Just ahead, the past couple days have underscored something Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump have in common, neither travels with a protective pool, a group of reporters who provide minute-by-minute updates to the campaigns. It's a big break with tradition. A controversial one. We'll explain that to you ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:33:23] COOPER: As we've been reporting, Hillary Clinton is in Chappaqua, New York. She canceled her scheduled events for today. She's recovering from pneumonia.
Here's some of my interview with her tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: David Axelrod was very critical of the way that you and your campaign handled, sharing your diagnosis with the public. He tweeted, "Antibiotics can take care of pneumonia, what's the cure for an unhealthy penchant for privacy that repeatedly creates unnecessary problems?" Why not just say on Friday as you said apparently to Senator Schumer on Sunday, you know, I have pneumonia, folks, I'm going to power through it. Why keep it a secret?
CLINTON: Well, I just didn't think it was going to be that big a deal. You know, I know Chuck said today he didn't tell anybody. It's just the kind of thing that if it happens to you and you're a busy, active person, you keep moving forward.
And, you know, I think it's fair to say, Anderson, that people know more about me than almost anyone in public life, they've got 40 years of my tax returns, tens of thousands of e-mails, a detailed medical letter/report. All kinds of personal details. And, you know, it's just so -- it's so strange that with all of that information out there, and as soon as it became clear I couldn't power through, we, you know, we said what was going on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, this put a spotlight on something that both Clinton and Trump have no common. Neither candidate travels with a protective pool. Reporters who travel with them at all times, providing minute- by-minute updates of anything that happens. It is a big break with tradition.
Joining me now is senior White House correspondent Jeff Zeleny, CNN political analyst, Maggie Haberman, she's the presidential campaign correspondent for "The New York Times", also Abby Phillip, national reporter for the "Washington Post".
[21:35:03] So what is this protective pool for those who don't know?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Protective pool basically is a group of reporters, you know, some photographers, broadcast correspondent, a wire service reporter from the A.P. or something who sort of rides in a van along with the motorcade, along with the presidential entourage so to speak to keep an eye on the nominee. It happens after someone becomes the nominee. It's basically like a smaller version of what happens once you're elected president.
COOPER: And your information is given to all reporters.
ZELENY: You shared along, you know, if something would happen to the person, that's the point of a protective pool. And 9/11, for example, a small version of the pool flew around the country with President Bush. It's for reasons like that when there's some important matter to go. It limits the press core to a small pool.
COOPER: So the ideal -- idea, Maggie, would be that in the 90 minutes where reporters are kind of pinned in down in lower Manhattan yesterday and did not know what was going on with Secretary Clinton, had there been a protective pool traveling in that entourage with her, they would have been giving real-time updates.
MAGGIE HABERMAN, "NEW YORK TIMES" PESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN CORRESPONDENT: Or something or at least they would have been aware where she was going at the moment it was happening. Often the pooler is not specifically told something in route but can tell from their surroundings what's happening. I think it was the combination of the pooler not being brought along. I'm not fully briefed on what the logistics were, but I've been to those ground zero ceremonies. And it's -- you get very pinned in just because there's a lot of security. I don't know that it was necessarily feasible to get the press in time but it was the lack of contact from anybody within Mrs. Clinton's campaign as well.
COOPER: There's also, Abby, real questions of whether had that video not been released that, you know, I guess it was a cell phone video where you see Secretary Clinton clearly in distress being helped into the van. Whether or not they would have come forward at all and said what had really happened.
ABBY PHILLIP, "THE WASHINGTON POST" NATIONAL REPORTER: Yeah, I mean, there was a huge gap between the way that they described this incident, what people then saw in the video. And to Maggie's point earlier, they didn't tell the press for about 20 minutes after -- until after she had left that she'd even left the scene and then it was an hour after that that they finally disclosed that something might have been amiss. And I think that they were forced to kind of elaborate on this situation because the video was much more dramatic than their statement had indicated. They said, "Oh, she was dehydrated. She left on her own accord." And they sort of seemed to say that everything was fine and maybe everything was fine. But the sort of severity of the situation was only revealed really because of that video.
COOPER: And had -- you know, when she -- and I asked her about this when she left her daughter's apartment, she said, "You know, I'm feeling great," and I -- you know, I sort of challenged her on that tonight, like, "You couldn't have been really feeling great." And she said, "Actually I was feeling great." But if she was feeling great, you think she could have just gone up to the protective pool right then and said, "You know what, I actually got diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday, but I wanted to power through it," as opposed to kind of not until the next day.
HABERMAN: You can make the argument, and some of her supporters have that they wanted to wait until she was checked out again to know what they were dealing with. But at the end of the day, they have been through health issues with her in the past. Obviously, what happened in 2012 with her concussion was very different than what appears to be happening here. But there have been issues before of trying to get information from people around Clinton about her health and not always being met promptly with it.
So with something like this, if it just pneumonia, there isn't a reason to not really just say upfront, especially when her point is correct that, you know, she is working through this. We've had -- one of the rules of a presidential campaign is everybody gets sick. You were on these planes, you were in these bubbles. Everybody gets sick. It's understandable. But it's harder to say after the fact, look, she's powering through this, when they have sort of minimized it over many, many hours. It wasn't just initial 90 minutes. The pneumonia piece didn't come out until the afternoon.
ZELENY: I've been trying to walk this line between feeding these conspiracy theories that are out there and providing more information. And I think by erring on the side of not wanting to feed the conspiracy theories they've actually made it worse. And there are people today in the campaign in Brooklyn who acknowledged that to me, saying, look, we didn't do that right because they were afraid of feeding that beast. But that's -- and look what happened. Eight hours transpired from the time she got into that van with assistance to the time they put out that press release on pneumonia. That is a long time. HABERMAN: And the video was scary looking, I mean to Abby's point the video looked -- I mean that is what you look like when you're fainting. But when all you've been told in the morning is she overheated and left and she's feeling much better now and then you see that video, I think it was jarring for people. And look, I do think that voters care about the health in general of their presidential nominees.
COOPER: We make a lot about the transparency issue in relation to this. Obviously Donald Trump also has real questions about transparency and ...
HABERMAN: Right.
COOPER: ... like tax returns but just, you know, the same protective pool. All that sort of stuff. I mean, looking back to the convention, you know, we heard multiple things coming out of the campaign for, sometimes it would go on for days, conflicting things coming out.
HABERMAN: He doesn't have a protective pool. I do want to be really clear about this. This is not a both sides issue. Clinton's campaign is much more open on this in terms of the press. They basically have a full protective pool. Not totally.
[21:40:01] But basically the Trump campaign does not. They are trying to work on expanding some of these things, but they are not there. They're -- this is a campaign that had until recently banned news outlets.
COOPER: Right. You mean, "The Washington Post".
HABERMAN: Including "The Washington Post". So this -- this should not be treated like it's on a curve here with this. And I know that we say that a lot about various issues with Trump. But it is -- there is something to the fact that neither of them has done a full accounting of medical records, but hers generally speaking on disclosures are deeper.
COOPER: We got to leave there. Maggie Haberman, thank you, Jeff Zeleny, Abby Phillip, thanks. Great to have you on.
Just ahead, Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks back at what we know about Hillary Clinton's medical history, as Maggie just mentioned, this isn't the first time Mrs. Clinton's health has grabbed the spotlight. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL RBEAK)
COOPER: The breaking news, Hillary Clinton says she's feeling better. She didn't think her pneumonia diagnosis was that big a deal and just wanted to power through it. I talked to her earlier this evening. She says she's now taking her doctor's advice resting at her home in Chappaqua, New York. She was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday but her campaign didn't reveal until Sunday after Clinton abruptly left that 9/11 ceremony and had to be helped into a van by Secret Service agents. As you can see in the video, her legs appear to buckle. She told me she felt dizzy, lost her balance for a minute.
[21:45:02] Her doctor later released a statement saying Clinton had become dehydrated. Today the Clinton campaign said they would release more medical information about Clinton in the next couple of days. This is not the first time Clinton's health has been in the spotlight. Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CLINICAL MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: She doesn't like to talk about it but Hillary Clinton's health history has been under scrutiny ever since she was first lady in the1990's. In 1998, she experienced what is known as a deep vein thrombosis, a blood clot in her right leg. At the time, she described the experience as the most significant health scare she has ever had. The big concern, DVTs or blood clots while treatable, can lead to complications, even death if the clot moves into the lungs or the heart.
In 2009, she had another blood clot, the location of which is still unknown, and which was not made public until she launched her most recent bid for the Democratic nomination. Clinton has been on blood thinners ever since. That same year while in route to meet with President Obama, Clinton slipped in the basement of the State Department, fracturing her right elbow and requiring surgery, but it was a concussion.
In December 2012 which Clinton sustained while battling a stomach virus fainting and then falling in her home that caused the most concern. President Bill Clinton saying after the fact her recovery took some time.
BILL CLINTON, 42ND UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: Required six months of very serious work to get over.
GUPTA: The glasses she wore after the concussion fitted with special prism lenses to help correct double vision gave some indication as to how serious the concussion was and a scan taken right after the concussion revealing yet another blood clot, this time in between her skull and the back of her brain. The big concern here is that the clot could prevent blood from draining properly from the brain causing swelling and possibly leading to a stroke. Follow-up exams suggested no long-term brain injury and the clot eventually dissolved.
Just over a year ago, her doctor released a health care statement stating in part that she's in excellent physical condition and fit to serve as president of the United States. She opened up about her health to ABC's Diane Sawyer in 2014.
DIANE SAWYER, ABC NEWS REPORTER: How is your health?
CLINTON: It's very good, thank you.
SAWYER: How serious was it?
CLINTON: It was, you know, it was -- I think a serious concussion.
SAWYER: The clot in addition.
CLINTON: Yes.
SAWYER: If the clot had dislodged ...
CLINTON: Well, can I tell you, that's what -- that was the scary point.
SAWYER: You had trouble with vision.
CLINTON: I had because of the force of the fall. I had some -- I had double vision for a short period of time and I had some dizziness.
SAWYER: Did you have trouble talking?
CLINTON: No. Not -- no, I had no problems. The only thing I had ...
SAWYER: Headaches?
CLINTON: No, I didn't -- I didn't have any of that. I didn't -- I felt fine, and I felt it was kind of silly that I was supposed to stay in bed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And Sanjay joins us now. Is pneumonia contagious?
GUPTA: Well, if it's untreated pneumonia. The bacteria can actually, when you're coughing it out, can be spread to other people. And you know even when they're in office or campaign office, there are other people who got sick, whether she was the source or she got sick from somebody else. It's likely that it was sort of being spread around.
COOPER: And there's different kinds of pneumonia.
GUPTA: There's definitely different kinds -- and we don't know what kind she necessarily has. There's bacterial pneumonia, there's viral pneumonia, can even have funguses that can cause pneumonia. She's on an antibiotic which I guess would suggest that maybe she has bacterial pneumonia. But again, they haven't said that. We also don't know how serious the pneumonia was. We haven't had a chest x-ray for example, to see if it involves one part of the lung or many parts of the lung.
COOPER: There's also a report out saying she doesn't like drinking water a lot and something (ph) that the campaign has try to get her to.
GUPTA: Yeah, you know, this whole notion of being dehydrated on that day, Sunday, yesterday, you know, it's very plausible. I mean that could have explained this. Not drinking, a hot day, having pneumonia, taking these medications in combination, maybe that's what caused all this.
COOPER: All right, Sanjay, thanks very much.
Up next, Hillary Clinton is not the first politician to stumble with a health scare. A look back when we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:52:40] COOPER: The breaking news, Hillary Clinton says she's feeling better. She's resting at home in Chappaqua, New York recovering from pneumonia. When I asked her earlier why she waited before revealing she had pneumonia she said she didn't think it was going to be a big deal.
If he wins in November, Donald Trump would be the oldest U.S. president ever elected. If Hillary Clinton wins, she would the second oldest behind Ronald Reagan. Their age is one reason there's pressure on them to release detailed health records. That said even healthy presidents get sick. And in the past, the standards for transparency about health issues were less robust. Here's Kyung Lah.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hillary Clinton is hardly the first candidate to visibly fall ill in the glare of running for president. 1992, President George H. W. Bush fainting and vomiting into the lap of the Japanese prime minister. His campaign blamed the flu. Bush 41 was in the middle of a tough re-election campaign against a much younger candidate, Bill Clinton.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: That video clip in today's parlance went viral, kept being shown over and over again on television, and it leads one to think that the candidate is weak.
LAH: That fear consistent through presidential times has historian Doug Brinkley as are the very human conditions of illness.
In 1840, William Henry Harrison was elected president. You may not have heard of him, because he stubbornly refused to wear a coat at his inauguration, caught pneumonia and died, after being president just one month.
In 1933, candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt publicly acknowledged his illness, polio, opening up a retreat for polio patients. But once elected, he famously restricted photographers from documenting his disability. This being one of the few film clips of FDR in a wheelchair.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, 32ND UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: We happen to live in the most dangerous time.
LAH: There are the candidates who simply lie about their health. John F. Kennedy projected youth, energy, when in reality his family and advisers kept his medical records and treatment inside the White House secret, hiding a rare autoimmune disease.
BRINKLEY: It's almost impossible to get away with it in this new media culture.
LAH: Video now captures stumbles like Bob Dole's plunge off the stage and Gerald Ford falling down the steps of Air Force One, both eventually satirized then weaponized in the political form against the older men. Learning from the past, John McCain chose to open up volumes of his medical history. Joe Biden did the same, though his disclosure came two decades after suffering an aneurism.
[21:55:01] Vice President Dick Cheney's heart issues were public. Though in his memoirs he revealed his safe held a secret resignation letter in case he became incapacitated while in office. Then there's recent history's most elderly nominee putting his age on its head.
BRINKLEY: Sometimes presidents are able to get rid of issues of health effectively. I remember in 1984 when Ronald Reagan, you know, flipped in a debate.
RONALD REAGAN, 40TH UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.
LAH: The Republican president perhaps a cue for this Democratic contender.
BRINKLEY: I think in this case the debates for Hillary Clinton are going to be a way for to outperform him, outdual him, and show that her stamina is for real, and that this set back of pneumonia was just that, a normal human condition that hits a lot of us when we're overworked and exhausted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAH: So here's what historians have to say to the Clinton campaign, recent history has shown that when it comes to medical issues it's best to be honest with the voters forthcoming rather than have the voters learn about it some other way. It's likely in today's media's landscape that FDR and JFK wouldn't have been able to hide their health issues. Anderson?
COOPER: Kyung, thanks very much. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:00:02] COOOPER: That does it for us. Thanks very much for watching. I'll see you tomorrow night. "CNN Tonight with Don Lemon" starts now.
