sick day -- let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. hillary clinton is in chpaqua tonight resting from a weekends that wasn't supposed to go this way. diagnosed with pneumonia on friday, she decided to, as they say in big-time sports, play hurt. as can often happen that turned out to be a bad call. under the hot sun of sunday morning, her condition turned for the worse. you can judge the pictures for yourself because video surfaced of clinton waiting to get into her van after leaving the ceremony early yesterday. she was unsteady and clearly required support. she seemed to be losing her footing there. she went to her daughter's apartment next, later emerging and waving to the crowd, unfortunately, a second decision was made to keep the whole matter from the public. that's when a bad day took a turn for the worst. the clinton campaign put out word because of the heat down at

that ceremony for 9/11 secretary clinton had simply left the occasion earlier than scheduled. her people now say keeping what actually happened secret was, as they said, a bad call. here they are. >> i think that in retrospect we could have handled it better in terms of providing more information. more quickly in those 90 minutes, we were putting a priority on making sure she was okay. i should say, as soon as she got into the vehicle, she was alert the whole time and was telling staff that she was fine. i do think that in those 90 minutes that elapsed we could have gotten more information out more quickly and that's on the staff. that's on us, and we regret that. >> it wasn't until sunday evening, however, that the campaign disclosed that clinton had been diagnosed with pneumonia on friday to tamp down concerns, of course, her doctor put out a statement that the clinton was sfs recovering nicely." two questions, one i think can be resolved with quickly if dealt with honestly, hillary clinton's health prognosis. if her pneumonia is of the type that can allow her to continue

her campaign at the robust pace that's needed, candidate or not, is it okay for her to get out there and being a candidate? that's a question for the doctors themselves. the other question yesterday's incident raised can only be answered by the voters' attention to the candidate. are they willing to accept her hillary clinton's instinct for rigidly controlling information about herself? are they open to giving her other strengths as a possible president to live with her propensity to release news only when releasing it is the only option? are they ready to accept rolling disclosure admitting to the truth only when the truth is out in the public already? for example, when there's an iphone that shows you being airlifted into a car. this afternoon clinton tweeted, thanks to everyone who has reached out with well wishes. i'm feeling fine and getting better. she said like everyone else, everyone who's ever been at home sick from work, i'm just anxious to get back out there. see you on the trail soon. that's good campaign flackery. we do wish her well. she has canceled a trip to california for a fund-raiser.

the campaign announced that bill clinton, that makes sense, will go in her place. that makes sense. both the clinton campaign and donald trump are both promise ing additional medical information soon to be released later in the week. we'll believe it when we see it. let's watch. >> it is our intention that in the next couple of days we'll be releasing additional medical information about hillary clinton. we've been in touch with her physician this morning to get those materials together. we're going to be releasing that to further put to rest any lingering concerns about what you saw yesterday. >> this last week, i took a physical. and i'll be releasing when the numbers come in, hopefully, they're going to be good. i think they're going to be good. i feel great. but when the numbers come in i'll be releasing very, very specific numbers. >> i'm joined by nbc's kristen welker. let me ask you one simple question that's going to linger. did the clinton campaign intend to keep secret for whatever reason her pneumonia prognosis from friday until it became

obvious something was sfwlong i think there were discussions about how and when to disclose the information. i think you had a couple of problems, chris, behind the scenes. one, all of the controversies that were being spun up by some republicans questioning secretary clinton's health and, number two, the 9/11 memorial. i have been told by democratic sources close to the campaign, close to secretary clinton, she was not going to miss the 9/11 memorial. she was a senator on september 11th. this was personal for her. so i think there was a sense in the campaign that the candidate was feeling pressure from all sides and that's part of what delayed it. and you also had secretary clinton saying she could power through. she wasn't coughing on saturday. and so she felt as though she could go to the memorial. based on my conversation with sources, there was an intention to at some point divulge the information to the public. the question is when, how would that have happened, and would we know at this point if we didn't have that video? those remain open questions. the campaign obviously pushing back on that, but it does feed

into the broader questions about transparency. i think that's why you're seeing her campaign officials come out today and say, hey, we could have done a better job. i anticipate when secretary clinton gets back out on the campaign trail, chris, she will need to address that head-on to put this criticism to rest. >> you know, the problem for me out there -- i'm not a big part of the story. i'm a minuscule part of it. just one of the people commenting on the campaign. i've been saying there's no real evidence of hillary clinton having a serious health problem. i was arguing that, of course, with former new york mayor rudy guiliani as recently as thursday, and evers saying, oh, no, look at the internet information, which is not very valuable, of course. in fact, not reliable. but look at all the coughing spells she's had. when you covered, did you see any extreme coughing that would suggest pneumonia? >> well, that cough that we saw about a week ago in ohio in which secretary clinton really struggled to catch her voice and to catch her breath. it was a coughing fit that went on for over two minutes. it was quite notable.

she tried to joke about it. she said i'm allergic to donald trump, but being there in the crowd, you knew that the cough was significant. now, of course, she said that was a cough due to allergies, but now we have this diagnosis. the clinton campaign, part of why they want to release the medical records, is to make the point the only thing that is wrong here is pneumonia and this is obviously something that is treatable with antibiotics. worth pointing out, chris, a number of her campaign staffers also got sick with serious colds, and i know at least two of them who also had pneumonia. so it does seem as though there's something going around the clinton campaign. but other than that coughing spell, i didn't see any signs that she was dealing with something serious. >> i didn't know you were doing so much work on the medical front. we have during this campaign. trump has also promised to put out his latest medical report from last week, his examination. thank you, kristen welker. this morning president obama's former chief of staff, former chief strategist, rather,

david axelrod ripped the clinton campaign for failure to disclose her medical condition. he said antibiotics can take care of pneumonia. what's the cure for an unhealthy penchant for privacy? that repeatedly creates unnecessary problems? that was a tough statement and a crafted one which shows he really wanted to say this. it wasn't off the cuff. it was a tough comment about the clinton campaign, which means clinton. joining me is jonathan allen, a great book about hillary, and heidi who wrote the main story today. heidi, you first. i will get to the biographer here. what does this say in all fairness objectively? does hillary clinton have a penchant for privacy? beyond the usual normal american penchant to keep your own personal health to yourself. >> well, the answer to that is yes but is this going to be a case that magnifies that and makes it a deal breaker for the american people? probably not. you can look -- >> a weak breaker? >> maybe. you can look at the pieces of this and look at what brian

fallon said and put this together and kind of figure out what happened here which was she knew on friday she was sick. she thought i can take the antibiotics and power through this and we'll see what happens on monday. that didn't exactly work out. >> do you think she was ever going to disclose if she could get away with it? >> who knows? given the narrative that was already out there and being pushed -- by the way, i don't think many people know this -- this had been going on for many months. "the national enquirer" wrote a piece back in october saying she would be dead in six months. there's been stuff out there that's been circulating. >> you shop in safeway, you read the stuff in those papers. it's horrendous. >> unfortunately for her, this takes some of that stuff mainstream. these people feel empowered. >> how are they going to jump this to a serious question of health beyond pneumonia? i had pneumonia five or six years ago. let me put it clearly. i've had malaria and pneumonia. pneumonia felt worse. i ended up getting steroids to get through it.

what are they called? steroid, yeah. and it was great. >> did you hit a lot of home runs the next season? >> no, no. it was only three or four days. it took something like that to shake you out of the very bad feeling you have. >> it's not crippling, it's just bad. >> i think it really depend z on what the clinton campaign does from here, they'll release more medical records. that's very important right now. the problem is they weren't being forthcoming. >> does this make rudy look right? >> no. >> explain why it doesn't. he was hinting all last week and before about how you have to go on the internet, you see how bad her sickness is. i said there's nothing on the internet worth reading. he kept talking about the coughing spells. >> that's all they had. >> four years ago, three years ago, karl rove went out and said she had brain damage. remember benghazi flu. >> you're getting further out. i'm saying, does the cough lead to pneumonia, yes or no? >> i'm not a doctor. i may have stayed at a holiday inn express. but i'm not a doctor. >> i never said you were. just last week, as i said, former mayor rudy giuliani

on "hardball" brought up concerns, i'm not sure concerns is the right word ---ing about clinton's recent coughing fits. let's watch. do you think there were any signs of illness last night by the former secretary of state? signs of illness? >> no, but i thought there were the day before when she coughed for about, i don't know, 15 minutes, and then coughed on the airplane and she spit something up. i don't know what's wrong with her. they kind of hide her. >> mayor, mayor, mayor. have you got any evidence besides -- >> i don't. >> do you have any evidence she's ill? >> i don't. all i do is see all these incidents of her coughing all the time. i don't know what it is. and i've seen her in several other situations she didn't look healthy. >> i say this in the crassest possible way, score one for rudy. because they did say the coughing suggested something more serious than just you know, you had a cold. >> they didn't have anything until now and, as you noticed today they're not talking about it because they think there actually might be -- might be -- a kernel of truth to it. that is why it's so important in

the next few days for the clinton campaign to come out with something more conclusive to back up what brian fallon said which is there is no underlying condition. >> why did they run on this thing months ago? why have they been ranting on the topic of health care -- not health care -- >> of her health? >> yes! why did they get on to this thing? >> look at who some of her advisers are. this is a tried and true tactic. didn't they do the same thing in 1988 with dukakis, just subtlety? >> they said he was seeing a shrink. >> it's the power of the suggestion. they even had reagan say, you know, an invalid, right? it helped create the impression and that was -- >> it didn't create pneumonia, though. that's gratuitous or serendipity on their part. sunday donald trump was characteristically -- uncharacteristically silent about secretary clinton's abrupt departure from the 9/11 ceremonies. this morning he called in to fox news and cnbc and addressed the incident. here is what he said.

>> i hope she gets well soon. i don't know what's going on. i'm, like you, i see what i see. the coughing fit was a week ago, so i assumed that was pneumonia, also. i would think it would have been. so thing's going on. but i just hope she gets well and gets back on the trail. and we'll be seeing her at the debate. it's interesting because they say pneumonia friday, but she was coughing very badly a week ago and even before that, if you remember. this wasn't the first time. so it's very interesting to see what is going on. i want her to get better. i want her to get out there. i look forward to seeing her in the debate. >> where are we going on this? >> look, if you're donald trump, this is the best moment that he's had in the campaign in terms of discipline, right? he has been tweeting about her health. he's been talking about it on the campaign trail saying she has no stamina and right now hillary clinton had the worst weekend of her campaign so far and, by the way, there's some competition for that. she has the worst weekend of her

campaign and he's getting out of the way of a story that she does not have control of. >> as long as there is not an underlying health condition with hillary clinton, we've already seen a lot of her records. now, this is double-edged. he will have to release his full medical report right now. right now all we have is a statement a four paragraph statement from a doctor saying he would be the healthiest president in the history of the u.s. even though he would be the oldest. >> a doctor who had a five-minute writing of that. >> right. >> we're going to finish up this topic because we have a much bigger one coming up and that's this question of deplorables, trump's calling it the biggest mistake of the election but does it compare to some of his slug plums? this is "hardball." try zyrtec® for powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin®. plums? this is "hardball." uslug plums? this is "hardball." sugslug plum? this is "hardball." aslug plums? this is "hardball." rslug plums? this is "hardball." sugar plums? this is "hardball."

>> you know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of trump's supporters into what i call the basket of deplorables.

right? the racist, sexist, homophobe yirks xenophobic, islam mo foeic, you maim it. >> welcome back to "hardball." donald trump is slamming hillary clinton for that remark describing half of trump's supporters what she called deplorables. here's what trump said in ballot moore today about is that she divides people into baskets as they they were objects, not human beings. after months of hiding from the press, hillary clinton has revealed her true thoughts. that was her true thoughts. she revealed herself to be a person who looks down on the proud citizens of our country as subjects for her -- the disdain that hillary clinton expressed toward millions of decent

americans disqualifies her from public service. you cannot run for president if you have you such contempt in your heart for the american voter. and she does. >> in a statement over the weekend, secretary clinton express the personal regret for her comments but didn't actually apologize. "i was grossly generalistic and that's never a good idea. i regret saying half." in other words, not some other percentage of the trump vote. i love the way she took back the half. now the trump campaign is out with a new ad to capitalize on what she said. here it goes. >> speaking to wealthy donors, hillary clinton called tens of millions of americans deplorable. >> you could put half of trump's supporters into what i call the basket of deplorables. the rassist, sexist, homophobic, islam mo foeic, you name it.

>> people like you, you and you deplorable. you know what's deplorable sflsh hillary clinton viciously demonizing hard-working people like you. >> i'm joined by halle jacksoning from donald trump's rally in north carolina where moments ago trump invited some supporters up on the stage so they could rebut clinton's remarks. there they are. that's show business. what do you make of it. >> is he exploiting this thing to the roof. >> definitely a moment. it is over. it wrappeded up maybe 45 minutes ago been the room is cleared out. trump pulled up about ten people to talk about how hillary clinton shouldn't be calling them deplorable. there was one couple that said we are the face. we are not the deplorable supporters basically. so trump kind of letting other people do the talking for him. he then took the stage and continued to go after clinton in a way we saw him do in baltimore. this was something he can codes by rudy guiliani who as you talked about in the last segment

had been one of the folks pushing some of these discussions can, these conspiracy theories about her health. instead tonight he went after clinton for the deplorables line. here's the campaign strategy. they're making this political calculation this will be as damaging to her as mitt romney's 47% comment. remember last cycle was to romney. they're also saying -- they're not just going after the half that you noted she walked back saying half, leaving an unknown percentage up there. they're going after the other basket. you heard giuliani say she described this other basket as the poor and desperate people, that is something communications director sean spicer has been echoing today, as well. clearly a line surrogates are deploying to say she thinks all an trump supporters aren't worthy of having her attention. that is not exactly what clinton said when you look back. but there's a calculation being made this will be ultimately beneficial to donald trump. does it come with political

ricks? of course, it does. a conversation about racism and sexism could potentially be damaging to donald trump. you look the at new "washington post" abc news poll showing that 60% believe he is biased towards women and minorities. any conversation that involves racism and sexism, a lot of political analysts are talking about this could end up hurting trump in the long run unless he's making the right bet here that people will see clinton as more out of touch and as somebody who doesn't care for them before november. >> thankyou, halle jkz. when we return, my election diary for where their stands right now with just two weeks to go before the first big presidential debate. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics.

>> monday, september 12th, 2016.

there's nothing you don't know the about the term this weekend. the question is what it will do to voter esloyalties. the decision by hillary clinton to keep the country in the dark on her medical condition feed the concern she prizes her privacy above all? that given a choice, she will choose to keep matters from the public even basic human facts like her having a case of pneumonia? this question took its position in the queue right ahead of her condemnmation of the basket of deplorables to describe half of trump's supporters. a friend once told me a rule with former presidents. you get nowhere politically calling people racists. it doesn't shame them and doesn't win them over to your side. it does remind of us when president obama then a candidate told that well off san francisco crowd about those folks who cling to their guns and religion because they lack progressive awakening. it ryes us of when mitt romney

assaulted that 47% as leaches on the body politic. as an old tv commercial advises it's not nice to fool mother nature or attack a substantial block of the electorate whose basic human concerns you promise to defend when you run for president of the entire country. donald trump showed the courtesy or at least is the political fak seem legal to cool it. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. join me again tomorrow night at 7 eastern. see you then

>> tonight on all in. >> they say pneumonia on friday but she was coughing very, very badly a week ago and even before that. >> as hillary clinton stays home to recover. >> she's doing fine. she was even better last night before she went to sleep.

>> why a sick day has the right wing rejoicing. >> i saw the video and i went, yeah, yeah. >> tonight, what we know about hillary clinton's health. then, trump demands an apology for this. >> you could put half of trump supporters into what i call the basket of deplorables. they say clinton is right and her numbers are too low. he joins me to defend that analysis of trump support. >> donald trump! >> [ bleep ]. >> yes. >> plus, the normalizing. >> the interest rates have kept it down by president obama. i have no doubt. >> three head-snapping comments today that barely made headlines. we'll update trump's last ten. and a foreign policy fact check. >> until the war is over, anything is legal. >> on the anything goes campaign. >> when "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes.