A spokeswoman for Sen. Bernie Sanders dismissed calls for the Vermont senator and 2020 Democratic candidate to release his medical records following his heart attack in the fall.
The issue of Sanders’s health came up on Tuesday night after the 78-year-old, self-proclaimed democratic socialist said he wouldn’t release his full medical records during a town hall on CNN. The following morning, Sanders’s national press secretary Briahna Joy Gray argued during an interview on the network that calls for Sanders to release additional medical records are unfair.
“I think that the American people deserve to know exactly as much as every other candidate has released in this race currently and historically,” she said. “And what you’re seeing right now is really reminiscent of some of the kind of smear, kind of skepticism campaigns that have been run against a lot of different candidates in the past. Questioning where they’re from, aspects of their lineage, et cetera, et cetera.”
Gray went on to claim that Sanders is the recipient of unfair treatment, saying that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has not faced similar questions despite having “suffered heart attacks in the past.”
However, a senior Bloomberg adviser, Tim O’Brien, refuted the claim on social media, writing, “This is such a Trumpy lie from the Sanders camp, which rolls like Trump in many ways. Mike Bloomberg has *never* had a heart attack. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, has had a heart attack. Those are the facts. It’s a dangerous time when Sanders goes all in with Trumpism.”
Bloomberg did, however, have two stents implanted in a coronary artery after a blockage in his heart two decades ago.
Sanders, during the town hall, noted that he has released three letters from medical professionals signaling he’s in good health but said he wouldn’t release additional information.
“We have released, I think … quite as much as any other candidate has. We released two rather detailed letters from cardiologists, and we released a letter that came from the head of the U.S. Congress medical group, the physicians there. So I think we have released a detailed report, and I’m comfortable with what we have done,” he said, later adding, “I don’t think we will [release additional records], no.”
