September 12, 2016 | No Comments
Hillary Clinton only briefly alluded to her health scare on Monday night as she called into a private San Francisco fundraiser while recuperating from pneumonia at home in New York, delivering a roughly five minute version of her standard pitch before signing off.
The Democratic nominee said she regretted being forced to stay East — “doctor’s orders” — but she nonetheless went on to touch on pieces of her platform, tout her new campaign book, and briefly criticize Donald Trump, a Democrat in the room told POLITICO.
The behind-closed-door remarks came after a day of rest for Clinton, who scrapped her planned West Coast fundraising trip on Sunday night so she could recover after collapsing after leaving that morning’s 9/11 memorial ceremony.
However campaign officials informed attendees on Sunday night that the event — a concert at The Masonic featuring musicians k.d. lang and Lizz Wright — would go on, and that Clinton would call in.
California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, who is running for governor in 2018, introduced Clinton on Monday. Roughly 2,500 people attended the event, contributing or raising between $250 and $100,000 each, according to the campaign.
Speaking to the crowd from her home in Chappaqua, Clinton hit on major campaign themes, such as gun control.
The brief comments were some of Clinton’s first since the health scare, after she tweeted that she was anxious to return to the campaign trail and then phoned into CNN, explaining her choice not to disclose her Friday diagnosis until Sunday by saying, “I just didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal.”
They were also her first at a fundraiser since Friday evening, when she publicly said that she viewed half of Trump’s supporters as being in a “basket of deplorables” — a remark that she has since sought to walk back but that she had said before in private.
She did not mention the “deplorables” controversy on Monday night.
Missing her West Coast trip, the Democratic nominee’s campaign instead dispatched her husband, former President Bill Clinton, to headline her two Los Angeles fundraisers on Tuesday before campaigning in Las Vegas for her on Wednesday. Hillary Clinton might still campaign on Wednesday, but her campaign has yet to announce any details.