Bernie Sanders promised to release his health records. Then he backed away from that promise, and his campaign is smearing journalists who challenge him on it.
In Wednesday night’s debate, Sanders doubled down on this deflection.
Moderators at the last debate before the Nevada caucuses asked the Vermont senator whether he would finally release his health records pertaining to his October heart attack. First, Bernie reiterated a slightly abridged version of a lie peddled by his national press secretary Briahna Joy Gray — that fellow 2020 candidate Michael Bloomberg also has heart problems.
“You have two stents, too,” Sanders said of the billionaire, who, in fact, has never suffered a heart attack and who got the stents 25 years ago.
“We released the full report of heart attack, full 29 years in Capitol medical history, and furthermore, we released reports from two leading Vermont cardiologist who describe my situation and, by the way, who said Bernie Sanders is more than able to deal with stress and vigor of being the president of the United States.”
As the sprightly 38-year-old Pete Buttigieg noted, three vague reports isn’t the norm. It’s simply an opaque legacy of President Trump’s refusal to release his full records. Candidates normally release full readouts of their health records. John McCain, who was a full seven years younger in 2008 than Sanders is now, released 1,100 pages of records. Did other candidates have to? No. Were other candidates unprecedentedly old and with obvious current heart attack risk? Also no.
If Sanders won the White House, he would be older on Inauguration Day than our oldest president ever, Ronald Reagan, on his last day in office. He’s asking to become the first octogenarian leader of the free world, months after a heart attack, without granting the public the dignity of knowing his long-term health status. He should either buck up or bow out.
