Hillary Clinton told CNN Monday night she was advised by her doctor to take five days off the presidential campaign, but ignored that advice because she didn't think the pneumonia diagnosis was "that big a deal."
Speaking by telephone to Anderson Cooper, Clinton said after Sunday's dizzy spell after leaving the 9/11 remembrance ceremony in New York, she has relented and will take a few days off.
"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," Clinton said.
Cooper asked Clinton about an interview her husband, former President Bill Clinton, gave to CBS News in which he said his wife had become dehydrated several times in her life.
Clinton said she has suffered such spells a few times over her life, but only twice in the past five years. She appeared to be referring only to Sunday's incident and to the December 2012 fall she suffered that left her with a concussion.
"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," she said.
Clinton said she never passed out, and felt better as soon as she got inside her van with air conditioning and had a drink of water.
"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," she said.
Cooper asked if the persistent cough she has previously blamed on allergies was actually pneumonia-related.
"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," she said.
The cough typically dissipates, though, and did not this time, she said.
She said New York Sen. Chuck Schumer told her during the 9/11 events he had pneumonia, and she shared her own diagnosis with him.
"Apparently there's something to this that's going around," she said. "I've since been contacted by a number of people who've told me they have had it, they've gotten over it."
She said she didn't try to keep her pneumonia a secret, but simply thought she could "power through it."
"Doesn't your handling of this, and your campaign's . . . refusal to acknowledge what happened until really after that video was circulated, confirms suspicion of some voters that you're not transparent or trustworthy?" Cooper asked.
"Oh, my goodness, Anderson," Clinton replied. "You know, compare everything you know about me with my opponent."
Clinton then changed the subject to the fact Republican nominee Donald Trump has been resistant to releasing his tax returns, saying he is still under IRS audit.
"You know, you've got a medical report on me that meets the same standard as Mitt Romney and Barack Obama," she said. "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."
Trump has been calling on Clinton to release more of her medical records, and she told Cooper she will be doing so. Trump is set to release the results of a recent physical later this week.
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