Former Democratic National Committee interim chair Donna Brazile says she does not think Hillary Clinton would have made the insulting remark that half of Donald Trump's supporters belong in a "basket of deplorables" had she been in better health.
In her new book, "Hacks," released Tuesday, Brazile wrote she saw Clinton before she made the Sept. 9, 2016, comment, and noted "Hillary did not look well," The Washington Free Beacon reported.
Brazile "noticed her face was puffy," "her skin looked pale and papery," and "that her eyes were glazed," the Free Beacon reported.
She approached Clinton about her health before the speech and saw that she was "wobbly on her feet" with a "rattled cough" — symptoms so concerning Brazile suggested medical attention, the Free Beacon reported.
"A short time later, I was seated in the audience at the Cipriani when [Clinton] strode up to the stage with her usual strong steps," Brazile wrote, the Free Beacon reported. "Then she said something that, had she been in better health, I don't think she would have said."
"When she said 'basket of deplorables' I knew that no matter what she said in the rest of her remarks, this would be the comment that made it on to the evening news," she wrote.
Two days later, Clinton had to leave a 9/11 memorial ceremony because she was woozy; her diagnosis of pneumonia was later announced.
Brazile slammed Clinton's campaign for lying about the illness, initially claiming Clinton was "overheated," calling the explanation "stupid" and a "huge blunder."
"The whole story stank, and the way the campaign handled it just made matters worse,” she wrote, the Free Beacon reported.
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