Mediaboss Marketing

Video of Clinton's departure seemed to show her buckling and stumbling as she got into her van. (Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)

Hillary Clinton falling ill Sunday morning at a memorial service onthe 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks will catapult questions about her health from the ranks of conservative conspiracy theory to perhaps the central debate in the presidential race over the coming days.

"Secretary Clinton attended the September 11th Commemoration Ceremonyfor just an hour and thirty minutes this morning to pay her respectsand greet some of the families of the fallen," spokesman Nick Merrill said. "During the ceremony, shefelt overheated, so departed to go to her daughter's apartment and isfeeling much better."

What that statement leaves out is that a) it came 90 minutes after Clinton left the ceremony b) reporters or even a reporter were not allowed to follow her and c) the temperature in New York City at the time of Clinton's overheating was in the low 80s. (A heat wave over the eastern United States broke last night/this morning.)

She later lefther daughter's apartment, saying she was "feeling great" and waving at the crowd, per the Associated Press. Clinton was diagnosed Friday with pneumonia, according to her doctor, who ascribed her illness on Sunday to that ailment.

Whether Clinton likes it or not, her "overheating" episode comes at a very bad time for her campaign. Thanks to the likes of Rudy Giuliani and a small but vocal element of the Republican base, talk of herhealth had been bubbling over the past week triggered by a coughing episode she experienced during a Labor Day rally.

Donald Trump responded to Hillary Clinton's recent diagnosis of Pneumonia on Monday, Sept. 12, saying he hopes she "gets well" and he plans to release "very, very specific" details about his own health soon. (Jenny Starrs,Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

That talk was largely confined to Republicans convinced that Clinton has long been hiding some sort of serious illness. I wrote dismissively of that conspiracy theory in this space last week, noting that Clinton had been given an entirely clean bill of health by her doctors after an episode in which she fainted, suffered a concussion and then was found to have a blood clot in late 2012 and early 2013.

Coughing, I wrote, is simply not evidence enough of any sort of major illness thatClinton isassumed to behiding. Neither, of course, is feeling "overheated." But those two things happening within six days of eachother to a candidate who is 68 years old makes talk of Clinton's health no longer just the stuff of conspiracy theorists.

Whereas Clinton and her campaign could laugh off questions about her health beforetoday, the "overheating" episode makes it almost impossible for them to do so. Not only has it come at a time when there was growing chatter with very little evidence that her health was a problem but it also happened at a 9/11 memorial event an incredibly high-profile moment with lots and lots of cameras and reporters around.

Her campaign may well try to dismiss this story as nothing more than an isolated incident, meaning nothing. (Democrats were already pushing the story of George W. Bush fainting in 2002 after choking on a pretzel,via Twitter.)

But the issue is that Clinton kept reporters totally in the dark for 90 minutes afterher abrupt departure from the 9/11 memorial service for a health-related matter. No reporter was allowed to follow her. (Clinton has resisted a protective pool for coverage because Donald Trump refuses to participate in one.) This is, yet again, the Clinton campaign asking everyone to just trust it. She got overheated! But she's fine now!

Presidential nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton put their campaigns on pause to attend the 9/11 remembrance ceremony in New York. (AP; Photo: Getty Images)

Clinton may well be totally fine and I certainly hope she is. But we are 58 days away from choosing the person who willlead the country for the next four years, and she is one of the two candidates with a real chance ofwinning. Taking the Clinton team's word for it on her health in light of the episode on Sunday morning is no longer enough. Reasonable people can and will have real questions about her health.

I wrote this on Tuesday morning:

The simple fact is that there is zero evidence that anythingisseriously wrong with Clinton. If suffering an occasional coughing fit is evidence of a major health problem, then 75 percent of the country must have that mystery illness. And I am one of them.

Well, that is no longer operative. Context matters. A coughing episode is almost always just a coughing episode. But when coupled with Clinton's "overheating" on Sunday morning with temperatures something short of sweltering Clinton and her team simply need to say something about what happened (and why the press was in the dark for so long.)

And as the New York Times's Adam Nagourney tweeted on Sunday morning, now might be a good time for Clinton to release a fuller record of her medical history.

Sunday morning changed the conversation in the race about Clinton's health. Or rather it will force Clinton to have a conversation about her health in the race.

Original post:
Hillary Clintons health just became a real issue in the ...

Hillary Clinton leaves an apartment building Sunday. Andrew Harnik / AP

Clinton's campaign has been tight-lipped about the Sunday incident, releasing only two short statements throughout the day. Many lingering questions could be easily cleared up by the campaign, while others will take time. Here are nine big questions we still have:

1.) Why hide the pneumonia diagnosis?

Clinton suffered a

Related:

Clinton's campaign appears to have, at best, withheld information from the public and at worst misled them by aggressively batting down "conspiracy theories" that her coughing fit was anything more than allergies. Opponents are already seeing the incident as proof of their claims that Clinton has been hiding health issues. And others may now be more incredulous of the campaign's statements on her health.

2.) Has Clinton been otherwise ill in recent days?

Has she had pneumonia in the past? Pneumonia is common, but still a potentially dangerous disease that sends about 1 million people to the hospital every year and kills about 50,000,

3.) Who made the call not to go to the hospital and when?

And did Clinton lose consciousness at all? After leaving the memorial, Clinton went to her daughter Chelsea's apartment and was later examined by her doctor at her own home in Chappaqua, New York. Why was it decided not to visit a hospital immediately?

4.) What is the campaign's position on the protective press pool?

Presidents and presidential candidates have traditionally traveled with a small, rotating group of journalists so the American public can get real-time updates about unexpected incidents exactly like the one on Sunday. But Clinton left her press pool behind at the Sept. 11 event and kept them in the dark for 90 minutes before providing any information on her whereabouts or health. Clinton has yet to agree to full "protective pool" coverage, which would allow reporters to follow her door-to-door. Will she now? (Trump, so far, has not allowed for full time "protective" pool coverage, and reporters do not fly on his plane with him to his campaign to events.)

5.) Will Clinton allow a true protective pool if elected president?

Clinton's health scare is already expected to

6.) Does Clinton accept the obligation to inform the public about her health?

Bill Clinton faced questions about his health too, and while he was unforthcoming in 1992, he sat for a detailed

7.) How will this change her schedule going forward?

After canceling plans Monday and Tuesday, Clinton's schedule the rest of week remains up in the air. She is scheduled to appear in Las Vegas on Wednesday and Washington, D.C. Thursday.

8.) Will Clinton's health affect the first debate?

Clinton's first debate with Donald Trump is just over two weeks away, on September 26, so she'll want to be fully recovered by then.

9.) How will voters respond?

Clinton's core vulnerability is that most Americans don't find her honest or trustworthy. Will voters now feel like they've been misled about her health? Or will the vulnerability of the illness make Americans empathize more with someone who often has difficulty connecting.

To be sure, we know vastly more about Clinton's health than we do about Donald Trump's. Not only is the information released by her campaign more comprehensive than that released by his, but Clinton has lived her life in the national spotlight for 25 years.

We have intimate details about her 2012 hospitalization, for instance, because she was secretary of state at the time. Trump has not been subjected to the same kind of scrutiny and has been less forthcoming during his presidential campaign.

Clinton may also face a different standard because of her gender, her defenders say. Many presidential candidates have had health issues, but Clinton defenders say that while enduring health issues can be seen as a sign of persistence in male candidates, it's viewed as a sign of weakness in women.

Read the original here:
Hillary Clinton's Health Scare: 9 Unanswered Questions

Are you prepared for the unthinkable? Is your portfolio prepared in case Donald Trump, rather than Hillary Clinton, wins the White House on Nov. 8?

Very few are. But after this weekend, they need to be.

The video footage of Hillary Clintons health episode on Sunday morning is not good. A member of the public, using a cellphone camera, filmed the former secretary of state being helped into a van by aides after apparently being overcome by heat at the 9/11 ceremony. She had left the event abruptly.

The so-called optics are damaging. And in the age of the internet, this clip can and will be repeated over and over and over.

If Hillary Clinton were a 45-year-old sports enthusiast whose health was not in question, this might be a storm in a teacup. But she is 68 and the Trump campaign was already flinging around health scares (some obviously bogus).

The incident comes as opinion polls show the election is down to a few percentage points. And Clinton was already on the defensive, after saying Friday that Donald Trump voters divide into two groups extremists, aka deplorables, and the rest.

(Ill confess I dont get this controversy. Her statement is so obviously true that its banal. Indeed, try rebutting it with a straight face. No, hardly any of Trumps supporters are extremists. Go to a Trump rally and you wont see any. Or: Well, racists and misogynists arent deplorable. Really? Critics tried to focus on Clintons claim that half of Trumps supporters fell into each camp but this is patently a figure of speech, like saying half my relatives are morons, and the rest are idiots. Only a twit thinks you mean 50% and 50%. Not that facts or logic have anything to do with this election anymore.)

Financial markets have been far too complacent about the likelihood of a Hillary Clinton victory on Election Day. It is far from a dead certainty especially now. Betting at Predictit, the elections market, now give Trump a one-in-three chance of winning.

What would that mean for investors?

Youd better brace yourself for a lot of volatility. Markets dont like unpleasant surprises. They hate uncertainty. And a possible Trump victory would mean both. Hillary Clinton is largely a known quantity. Trump isnt. The outside world is hardly likely to stay calm at the news that the U.S. government, nukes and all, is being handed over to an unstable, inexperienced TV personality with a quick temper and a long line of incendiary threats. You should expect stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities to react.

A money manager I spoke to last week said if Trump looks like hes winning, hed bet on three things: Gold, guns and germs or in other words gold, defense stocks and health-care stocks.

He figures Trumps election would cause a dollar panic which would be good for gold (and other hard currencies, such as the Swiss franc). Trump has already vowed to essentially launch currency wars against trading partners such as China and Japan.

Defense contractors should do well: Trump has promised to raise U.S. defense spending drastically. (Note: Gun makers like Sturm, Ruger & Co. RGR, -2.51% on the other hand, might suffer. They typically do best when their customers panic about Democrats in the White House, and rush out to stock up before the long expected ban.)

Meanwhile, a Trump victory would be bound to put the entire health-care industry in the spotlight, including the insurers, the major drug companies, biotechs and others. Investors have been wary of these stocks for fear that a President Clinton would try to bring down health-care costs by pressuring their high prices, costs and profit margins. Its hard to be sure what Trump would do, but he has promised to push for massive deregulation.

The implications of a Trump victory wouldnt end there. It could upend everything from construction stocks, thanks to Trumps alleged wall with Mexico, to Moscow, where investors would hope for an end to Western sanctions. Interesting times.

Read the original here:
How Hillary Clintons health scare threatens the markets ...

It is far easier to argue that your opponent is not fit to serve if you can provide confidence that you are fit to serve yourself.

That's part of how Sunday's medical episode involving Hillary Clinton, followed by contradictory and incomplete explanations from Clinton's campaign, makes for a major campaign moment that has the potential to upend the race to the White House.

Fitness now takes on literal meaning and outsize importance in a tumultuous campaign that already seemed to see everything. Questions about Clinton's health figure to compete for space with how Clinton's campaign handled the fallout, for at least the next few days, if not right through Election Day.

One bad health spell assuming it's only that could have the impact of legitimizing concerns raised by Donald Trump that Clinton has been seeking to delegitimize. It puts Clinton's allies in an awkward spot in what was already set to be a difficult phase of her campaign.

In a measure of how difficult this may be for Clinton to muddle through, Trump and his campaign have shown uncharacteristic initial restraint. They realize that this is a mess of Clinton's creation and that how she deals with it could have far-reaching ramifications for the balance of the race.

Within moments of the episode, the Clinton campaign went into a vaguely familiar lockdown mode. When word did emerge from the campaign, the official account was that Clinton felt overheated at a 9/11 remembrance event and was feeling "much better" a story that seemed incomplete in light of video evidence that quickly surfaced.

Hours later came word that as that she was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday and placed on antibiotics. This came after days when coughing fits bad enough to stop her from continuing at public events were blamed on allergies.

All this may have been hard enough to believe on its face had Clinton and her aides not had a history of misleading the press and public when it comes to her health. The full story of her fainting spell in 2012, when she was secretary of state, may still not be known, and it began to be told only when glasses she wore in public testimony revealed a more complicated truth.

Earlier this year, in relation to the unrelated matter of her personal email, Clinton declared that she was the "most transparent official in modern times." That statement strains basic credulity now more than ever.

Clinton allies will argue that she has provided more health-related details, not to mention vastly more financial and professional information, than Trump. That is inarguable.

It is also, for now, beside the point. After just this one ill-timed health scare and in the course of just a few hours, Clinton's campaign reinforced concerns about her honesty and accountability. The timing also happened to play into a Trump campaign line of attack about her stamina and overall health.

Just last week, when asked about her health, Clinton declared, "I'm not concerned about the conspiracy theories."

But when events and actions reinforce those storylines, it's time to be concerned. Those theories will harden and go mainstream, until or unless the campaign addresses them not with accusations and partial accounts but with solid information.

Visit link:
ANALYSIS: Hillary Clinton's Health Scare Creates Major ...

Hillary Clinton, speaking Friday at a big-ticket fundraiser in New York City, said half of Donald Trumps supporters could be categorized into a basket of deplorables, implying that his backers hold irredeemable views on issues of race, gender and religion.

Play Video

The Democratic nominee spoke to donors about some of the "racist, sexist, homophobic" backers of Trump's campaign, but called for empathy for "th...

To just be grossly generalist, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables, Clinton told donors gathered at a Manhattan restaurant. Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that, and he has lifted them up.

He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million, she continued, referencing Trumps campaign hire of Breitbart News Steve Bannon. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.

The Democratic nominee noted that some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but they are not America.

Play Video

At a rally in Florida, Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of being able to get away with anything. CBSN's Reena Ninan speaks with Roll Call col...

Clinton, who was introduced by celebrities Laverne Cox and BarbraStreisand, went on to describe the other basket.

The other basket, and I know because I look at this crowd, I see friends from all over America hereBut that other basket of people are people who feel that government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, she said. They are just desperate for change. Doesnt really even matter where it comes from.

In a statement Saturday afternoon,Clinton later walked back her estimate that half of Trumps supporters were deplorable,saying it was wrong.

Play Video

With less than two months until Election Day, the presidential candidates have shifted their attention to foreign policy. Hillary Clinton used he...

Last night I was grossly generalistic, and thats never a good idea. I regret saying half -- that was wrong, she wrote. Butshe went on to list other deplorable developments in the Trump campaign, including his hiring of a major advocate for the alt-right, his attack on a federal judge for his Mexican heritage, and his criticisms of a Gold Star Muslim family.

I wont stop calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in this campaign, she promised.

Outrage spread on Twitter almost immediately after Clintons basket of deplorables line, which GOP pollster Frank Luntznoted was similar to the campaign-sinking 47 percent comments made by Mitt Romney in 2012.

Trumps children mocked Clinton further on Twitter, using trendinghashtags like #basketofdeplorables to defend their father:

Trump even fired back at Clinton on the social media platform, blasting Clinton Saturday morning that she had been SO INSULTING to my supporters.

Later in the afternoon, Trump said he has respect for all of Clintons supporters, though they will never vote for me:

In a longer statement released after his tweets, Trump called Clintons remarks the worst mistake of the political season.

[I]nstead of owning up to this grotesque attack on American voters, she tries to turn it around with a pathetic rehash of the words and insults used in her failing campaign? Trump said. For the first time in a long while, her true feelings came out, showing bigotry and hatred for millions of Americans.

The Clinton campaign, for itspart, has backed their candidates comments, saying that while Trumps supporters dont all fit into that category, several are part of the so-calledalt-right hate movement.

Clinton spokesperson Nick Merrill tweeted this late Friday night:

Continued here:
Hillary Clinton: Half of Donald Trump supporters in "basket ...