 "Hillary Clinton's illness may spur calls to release medical records")
The video of a buckling and stumbling Hillary Clinton lurching into the arms of her security staff at Ground Zero in New York may increase pressure on the Democratic presidential candidate to release her detailed medical records, US media reported on Monday.
The incident, which occurred after months of questions about her health from her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, and his campaign, is likely to increase pressure on Clinton to address the issue and release detailed medical records, which the 68-year-old former secretary of state has so far declined to do, The New York Times said.
Clinton is being treated for pneumonia and dehydration, her doctor said, hours after she abruptly left a ceremony in New York honouring the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and had to be helped into a van by Secret Service agents.
Clinton's campaign on Monday said she was canceling her plans to travel to California on Monday for what had been a planned two-day trip there as part of the election campaign for the November 8 presidential poll.
The episode thrust questions about Clinton's health and the transparency of her campaign squarely into the last two months of the race, which many polls show has grown tighter, the leading newspaper said.
"The incident quickly renewed attention to Clinton's health," The Washington Post said, noting that her rival Trump, 70, has repeatedly questioned her well-being, saying that she doesn't have the "strength" or "stamina" for the presidency and accusing her of being "exhausted".
"A weekend of stumbles has Hillary Clinton suddenly looking vulnerable at a pivotal moment of her battle with Donald Trump," CNN commented.
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"Her swoon Sunday at muggy Ground Zero — and damaging video of Clinton lurching into the arms of her security detail -- dramatically turned the state of her health from conservative conspiracy theory into a genuine campaign issue," the network said.
The episode also exacerbates questions about transparency that have long dogged Clinton's White House bid after the campaign revealed the Democratic nominee is suffering from pneumonia — a fact it kept quiet since Friday, it noted.
"But Sunday's drama was just merely a capstone on Clinton's rough 48 hours," the network commented, referring to her remark that "half" of Trump's supporters were "deplorables," meaning racists, sexists and homophobes.
The remark, for which she later expressed "regret," had suddenly united a Republican Party that has struggled to get behind its divisive nominee, it said.
"The double blows came at just the wrong time for Clinton, as Trump closes in the polls and pressure builds ahead of the first presidential debate in two weeks — an event shaping up to be a potentially pivotal moment of the campaign," it said.
Whether Clinton's rocky weekend will turn out to be just another unexpected twist in an election season that has had everything, or exert a lasting political impact will only become clear in the coming days, it said.
"The speed of her recovery and the way her enemies handle the episode will do much to shape how voters respond to her health issue," it added.
Fox News reported that the Clinton campaign for weeks has been dealing with - and working to quell - speculation about her health, including a 2012 concussion, and yesterday's incident is "sure to fuel that fire".
It noted that her campaign last year had released a summary of Clinton's medical records and conditions.
In the July 28, 2015, letter, Dr Lisa Bardack, an internist in Mount Kisco, New York, described Clinton as "a healthy 67-year-old female whose current medical conditions include hypothyroidism and seasonal pollen allergies," Fox News noted.
The letter took note of her elbow fracture in 2009 and concussion in 2012. Bardack detailed how Clinton, had to undergo "anti-coagulation therapy" to dissolve a clot, and experienced "double vision for a period of time," after the concussion.
Bardack concluded that Clinton was in "excellent physical condition and fit to serve."
But the medial summary has not satisfied some skeptics, who have pointed not only to the concussion but her occasional coughing bouts on the campaign trail, the channel reported while pointing out that Clinton's chief strategist Joel Benenson recently said the campaign has no plans to release more detailed records.
Interestingly, asked whether she was concerned that such questions about her health would affect the election, as the polls have tightened, Clinton had told reporters on her campaign plane last week: "I'm not concerned about the conspiracy theories. There are so many of them, I've lost track of them.