Hillary Clinton showed Americans this week she still engages in "deception" and "deceit" by attempting to hide her bout with pneumonia, Ari Fleischer, the former White House spokesman for President George W. Bush, told Newsmax TV.
"They turned what could have been, should have been an ordinary health-related event — which the public always understands — into an issue involving her honesty," Fleischer said Thursday to Bill Tucker, guest host of "The Steve Malzberg Show."
"She had pneumonia and she withheld information about having pneumonia, and then her staff deceived the country when they said that she suffered overheating. And it took them from Friday until Sunday to clean it up and tell the truth. That's the problem with Hillary. It's a longstanding pattern."
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Fleischer said in 1998 when Clinton was first lady, she suffered from a blood clot located behind one of her knees.
"And she wanted to power on back then . . . and not stay at the White House as her doctors had told her to do as first lady. But she deceived her staff. She had her staff under the impression that it as a knee injury, not a blood clot," Fleischer told Tucker.
"This is her pattern and this deception, this deceit, this tell something else than it is, it will get you every time and that's one of the fundamental flaws of her entire campaign and her entire career, frankly."
He added now Americans will watch Clinton's every move.
"If she has another health issue it's going to be a real problem … She's going to have millions of eyeballs now watching how she climbs stairs and how steady she is and we'll all watch that unfold," Fleischer said.
He also accused the media of being soft on the coverage of Clinton's near collapse at Sunday’s 9/11 ceremony in New York City.
"The coverage of her collapsing into the arms of the Secret Service and her aide who helped her get into that van was ridiculously soft. People in the media walked around what took place. They were saying she was helped into the van, she stumbled, she lost her balance," he said.
"She collapsed into the arms of those who were around her, and if they weren't there, she would have collapsed onto the ground. And, this is what I object to, is the media trying to clean things up because they understand it?
"They know that if there is a serious health issue for Hillary, it can rebound to the benefit of Donald Trump in the eyes of many voters, so they don't want to cover it that way in a way that would benefit Trump. Just tell the American people what took place, we'll figure the rest of it out."
The Democratic nominee's campaign announced Wednesday she had been diagnosed with mild, non-contagious bacterial pneumonia. It had been diagnosed last Friday, but, as Clinton conceded this week, she ignored her doctor's advice to modify her schedule.
Clinton's physician also declared her "fit to serve" as president.
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