Clinton deals with pneumonia as Trump defends his backers

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Hillary Clinton says she got dizzy but didn’t lose consciousness when she stumbled on the way out of the 9/11 memorial Sunday.

The Democratic presidential candidate said in an interview on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that she felt dizzy and “did lose my balance,” while waiting for the motorcade. But she felt immediately better after getting into her air-conditioned vehicle.

She said she didn’t immediately disclose that she’s been diagnosed with pneumonia because she “just didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal.”

Clinton said her doctor said to rest for five days, but she “didn’t follow that very wise advice.” She added that she’ll be back on the campaign trail “in the next couple of days.”

Clinton campaign aides said Monday that an outbreak of respiratory illness swept through Clinton’s campaign in the weeks before she was diagnosed with pneumonia.

Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, will headline some of her events, an aide announced late Mon-day.

Hillary Clinton is expected to be back on the campaign trail as soon as Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump stood up for his supporters Monday against Hillary Clinton’s remark that half of his supporters belonged in “a basket of deplorables,” denouncing the comment as “an explicit attack on the American voter” and suggesting that it makes her unfit for the presidency.

But even as Trump defended his backers, one lashed out at protesters in the hall by appearing to punch and slap them. Trump talked through the scuffle.

“While my opponent calls you deplorable and irredeemable,” he said in Asheville, N.C., “I call you hard-working American patriots who love their country and want a better future for all our people.”

But his rally was interrupted several times by demonstrators and, at one moment, brief violence. As several protesters were being escorted out by security, a man in the crowd grabbed a male protester around the neck and then punched him. He then slapped at a woman being led out. The Trump supporter was not ejected by security.

The celebrity businessman talked through the scuffle but cracked after the disturbance: “Is there any place more fun than a Trump rally?”

No stranger to making his own sweeping negative characterizations of large groups of people, Trump nonetheless deployed Clinton’s remark as the foundation for a new campaign theme. The message: Clinton is divisive, while Trump is the only candidate representing “all Americans.”

Trump, who has long questioned Clinton’s fitness for the presidency, was notably restrained on the health matter, saying he hopes Clinton feels better soon.