If Hillary Clinton’s campaign thought revealing the details of the candidate’s pneumonia diagnosis would help quell the conspiracy theories surrounding her health, they were dead wrong. Speculation about what is really up with Clinton has only intensified in the 24 hours since she nearly collapsed outside of a 9/11 memorial event. And now it has found its way to The View.
On one side were moderator Whoopi Goldberg and co-host Joy Behar, who thought concerns about Clinton’s health were overblown. “People are like, ‘Well, see?! She’s been lying about her health!’” Goldberg said at the top of the segment, imitating all the Hillary truthers out there.
Jedediah Bila said she believes the whole episode says more about the Clinton campaign’s communication with the public, adding that she was genuinely “worried” for the candidate when she saw the video of Secret Service helping her into her car. If she had known about the pneumonia diagnosis, she would have understood a little better what was going on.
All of the hosts could agree that Clinton’s doctor probably told her to stay home and rest, as she is now doing this week instead of traveling to California for planned fundraisers, but as Behar said, she “would have been vilified” for skipping the 9/11 anniversary ceremony. And if she canceled because she was sick, speculation about her health in general would only have become more rampant—which is more or less what proceeded to happen on the show.
“I don’t know if I would have told everybody either,” Goldberg said, “because you know as soon as you say you have pneumonia, people are like, mhmm.”
Proving her point on cue was the token conservative Candace Cameron-Bure, who said, “I don’t know, I look at that video y’all and think it’s more than pneumonia. That video is disturbing to me, and it makes me wonder if there’s something that they’re hiding that may be of more concern.” She then added, “I don’t want to speculate” for good measure.
“While we’re speculating, maybe Trump went to Mexico because he wanted to get some sort of alternative medicine for some disease he has,” Behar shot back. “I mean, anything could be true!”
Later, Cameron-Bure wondered if Clinton put her grandchildren in danger of catching the pneumonia by visiting Chelsea Clinton’s apartment to rest, an idea that may have seemed absurd at first until reports surfaced of the infection spreading among her campaign staff.
“There’s no way for her to win in this,” Goldberg said, acting as a rare voice of reason. “If you say enough, in a year, ‘She’s not healthy, she’s not healthy, she’s not healthy,’ at some point, she’s not going to be healthy. It’s just what happens.”