In an interview Wednesday with NBC News, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he “misspoke” the day before when he told reporters that he planned to cut back on his vigorous campaign schedule after suffering a heart attack last week.
“I said a word I should not have said, and media drives me a little bit nuts to make a big deal about it,” Sanders told NBC’s Harry Smith during a sit-down interview in his Burlington home. “We’re going to get back into the groove of a very vigorous campaign. I love doing rallies and I love doing town meetings.”
The 78-year-old presidential candidate said he would “start off slower and build up and build up and build up.”
Sanders’ comments appeared to contradict what he told reporters outside his house on Tuesday after returning from an appointment with a cardiologist. In those remarks, according to a video released by CNN, the candidate said he would “probably not do three or four rallies a day” anymore.
“I think we’re going to change the nature of the campaign a bit,” he said. “Make sure that I have the strength to do what I have to do.”
Sanders’ campaign has faced criticism for waiting three days to disclose that he’d had a heart attack. In an initial statement released the morning after the October 1 event, senior adviser Jeff Weaver said only that Sanders had “experienced some chest discomfort” and required two stents.
In an interview with Seven Days on Tuesday, Weaver said he had not been aware at the time the campaign released that statement that Sanders had suffered a heart attack. “No, I don’t believe we did know that. I certainly didn’t know that,” Weaver said, adding, “I personally did not know that. No, I did not.”
In Wednesday’s interview with NBC, Sanders told Smith that the doctor who first treated him at an urgent care center in Las Vegas had told him at the time that he had experienced a heart attack.
In text messages after the interview aired, Weaver said he stood by his earlier assertion. Asked how he had not known what the doctor had told his boss, Weaver said, “I was not in the room with him. I put out the most accurate information I had at the time in the interest of providing updates.”
Weaver would not say whether Sanders reviewed the “chest discomfort” statement before it was released.
In the NBC interview, Sanders said that questions about his campaign’s transparency were nothing more than “a media thing.”
“That’s nonsense,” he said, adding, “The first thing that we’re trying to do is understand what’s going on and not run to the New York Times and have to report every 15 minutes. You know, this is not a baseball game. So I think we acted absolutely appropriately.”
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The common thread amongst dangerously arrogant and ignorant politicians in 2019: blame the media!!!
I wonder if it’s possible that Bernie is actually reconsidering whether it is in his best interests, and the best interests of the country, for him to be running for President given his age and health…and his craven political advisers are shouting him down.
I really don’t see a news story here and wish that more relevant pressing issues occurring locally could be covered by Seven Days.
Bernie — or perhaps his team — tried to manage the news about his heart attack and got caught in the act. So now, Bernie wants to shift the focus to “the media.”
I have personal experience: I’ve had 3 heart attacks, all of them very different in terms of symptoms. But in all cases, there isn’t a long delay between arrival at the hospital and diagnosis. I find it hard to believe that doctors would undertake angiography without having a diagnosis, and the campaign ballyhooed the stents 3 days before it fessed up to the heart attack.
I don’t know Jeff Weaver, but his excuse that the campaign didn’t know rings totally hollow to me. The only conceivable way it is plausible is to believe that the campaign communicates so poorly that a key figure like Weaver would have been left in the dark. If that’s true, then perhaps Weaver’s not lying, but then we ought to be looking at Sanders’ ability to run his own organization, since he wants to run the federal government.
This issue is significant if you believe lying matters. Bernie wants to be the next president. Do we really want to elect another man whose campaign lies and then covers up its lies? Wasn’t one enough?!
So far I’ve agreed with one comment – Mark Montalban.
Walter Cronkite – I ask you – “What would the real Walter Cronkite have said?”
Here’s from Wiki about JFK’s death:
“CBS cut back to Cronkite reporting that one of the priests had administered last rites to the president. In the next few minutes, several more bulletins reporting that Kennedy had died were given to Cronkite, including one from CBS’s own correspondent Dan Rather that had been reported as confirmation of Kennedy’s demise by CBS Radio. As these bulletins came into the newsroom, it was becoming clearer that Kennedy had in fact lost his life. Cronkite, however, stressed that these bulletins were simply reports and not any official confirmation of the President’s condition; some of his colleagues recounted in 2013 that his early career as a wire service reporter taught him to wait for official word before reporting a story. Still, as more word came in, Cronkite seemed to be resigned to the fact that it was only a matter of time before the assassination was confirmed. He appeared to concede this when, several minutes after he received the Rather report, he received word that the two priests who gave the last rites to Kennedy told reporters on the scene that he was dead. Cronkite said that report “seems to be as close to official as we can get”, but would not declare it as such. “
So, WC also held off on a definitive statement until he had enough reports on hand. 38 minutes after the shooting, JFK was pronounced dead. About an hour after receiving the first bulletins from Dallas, Cronkite made the official announcement over the air. He made sure it was true first.
So I wouldn’t be too hard on Bernie’s guy.
C’mon Paul, I know Bernie has dissed you and Digger, but multiple, almost daily stories on his heart health while ignoring many important stories, both in Vermont and especially nationally seems a bit inappropriate.
This is Bernies second go around on the big stage and he and his minions still dont know basic media messaging?
One: dont hide your heart attack.
Two: dont say youre going to cut back on campaigning if thats not what you want the media to report. Duh. Super Duh.
Three: boycotting the local media because they reported on the investigation of your wife is 6th grade, schoolyard, bush league stuff. And generally attacking the media because they dont always publish pure flattery of you puts you in league with the narcissistic crybaby in the White House.
Hey Know, how you doing? It would be great if you could say things in a positive way.
The “dislike” gang didn’t like the Walter Cronkite story. Sorry – just making a point about the delay between a Doctor’s diagnosis and the official public statement. It’s a good story.
I do agree with much of what is said here. It would be refreshing to have a discussion without the taunting.