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Mook: Clinton Kept Diagnosis Secret Because She Didn’t Want to ‘Disrupt the Campaign’

September 14, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook told CNBC’s Becky Quick on Wednesday that Clinton kept her pneumonia diagnosis a secret because she did not want to disrupt her campaign.

"She originally didn’t want this to disrupt anything," Mook said. "Didn’t want it to disrupt the campaign."

Squawk Box co-host Becky Quick asked Mook about Clinton’s health in light of her fainting at the 9/11 memorial on Sunday in New York City. Quick said there have been many surrogates out on the campaign trail for her and wondered when she would be back at it.

"So, there have been these questions swirling about candidate Clinton’s health, about what we saw in some of the the videos that happened there," she said. "We’ve seen Barack Obama back out on the campaign trail, Bill Clinton, several others including Joe Biden. But, what can you tell us about Mrs. Clinton’s health, and what can you tell us about when we should expect to see her again on the trail?"

He said Clinton is doing "great" and that on Thursday she will return to the trail by visiting Greensboro, North Carolina and speaking at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

Quick then brought up Vice President Joe Biden acknowledging that the campaign should have disclosed the pneumonia diagnosis when she was first told about it Friday.

"Robby, there was an admission yesterday, I think from Joe Biden, that maybe it was a mistake to not tell people on Friday when she was originally apparently diagnosed with pneumonia that she had it," she said. "Why didn’t you tell people at that point?"

After explaining that she was overheated, Mook said that Clinton did not want to distract from her campaign with this diagnosis.