Clinton told a North Carolina crowd that she did not want to make a ‘big fuss’ about her illness at first but her four-day rest allowed her to reflect on campaign

Hillary Clinton returned to the presidential campaign trail on Thursday, making a confident first public appearance since pneumonia forced her to take a four-day rest.



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Taking to the stage to the sound of I Feel Good by James Brown, the Democratic nominee insisted she was fully recovered and filled with a new sense of urgency at a critical juncture in American politics

“Being on the trail does not encourage reflection,” she told a young crowd at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. “It’s important to sit with your thoughts every now and again and this helped me to reflect on what this campaign is all about.”

Speaking calmly, without the cough that has interrupted recent appearances, the former secretary of state appeared rested. As she climbed the steps to the podium, she gripped a guard rail carefully.

“For millions of moms and dads, if they get sick there is no backup, they are on their own,” she said, turning her experience into a renewed call for better provision of healthcare and family leave. “That’s the story for too many people in America.”

Earlier Donald Trump, who has pulled level in some recent opinion polls, made his most explicit reference yet to his opponent’s health, releasing medical records that boasted of his ability to “endure – uninterrupted – the rigors of a punishing and unprecedented presidential campaign”.

The physical examination also revealed the 70-year-old Republican to be overweight, at 236lbs, but he claimed he had bolstered his physical condition by giving speeches on the campaign trail.

“It’s a lot of work,” said Trump. “You know, when I’m speaking in front of 15, 20,000 people and I’m up there using a lot of motion, I guess in its own way it’s a pretty healthy act. A lot of times these rooms are really hot, like saunas and I guess that’s a form of exercise.”

Clinton truck a defiant tone, ignoring a young male heckler who shouted “you suck” to calmly set out the differences between the two campaigns.

“I confess I will never be the showman that Trump is,” she said, before returning to familiar campaign messages on the economy and social justice.

“I have been involved in politics for many years. It’s not an easy business. Sometimes it can be rough. People accuse me of all kinds of things, but nobody every accused me of quitting and I will never ever give up.”

The Democratic nominee also addressed widespread criticism the she had been slow to acknowledge the seriousness of her recent illness, both to herself and the public.

“As you may know I recently had a cough that turned out to be pneumonia” she said. “I tried to power through it, but even I had to admit that maybe a few days rest would do me good … I am not great at taking it easy under ordinary circumstances, but with just two months to go until election day [home] was the last place I wanted to be.”

“When it comes to public service,” she said, “I am better at the service bit than the public bit.”

Unusually, the half-hour speech started 15 minutes early. It was the first of a series of events now scheduled for the next few days. After speaking to reporters, Clinton was due to head to Washington DC for a public dinner and then to Philadelphia, New York and Florida before returning to North Carolina next week.

Warning there were just “54 days to the most consequential vote in our lives”, Clinton has enlisted support from Michelle and Barack Obama and dispatched prominent liberal allies Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders to shore up the campaign in the crucial swing state of Ohio.

Earlier on Thursday, a new poll for CBS and the New York Times showed Clinton and Trump on 41% each, while Rasmussen had Trump up by 2%. Another swing state poll on Thursday showed Trump ahead by 8% in Iowa, a state Obama took by 6% in 2012.

In her remarks to reporters, Clinton hit out at Trump for rudely dismissing the concerns of a church leader in Flint, Michigan this week, insisting: “Reverend Faith Green Timmons is not a ‘nervous mess’.”



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Clinton also addressed her campaign’s handling of news of her illness, saying “my senior staff knew” about the pneumonia diagnosis. She did not say whether her running mate Tim Kaine was informed.

“We’ve communicated,” she said. “I’m not going to go into our personal conversations.”

She added: “This was an ailment that many people just power through and that’s what I thought I could do as well … So I got the antibiotics up and going, got the rest that I needed and we’ll go on from there.

“I thought I was going to be fine. I thought that there wasn’t any reason to make a big fuss about it. I should have taken time off earlier, I didn’t and now I’m back on the campaign trail.”

Earlier, Clinton boarded her plane in New York in the full glare of the media, flashing a big thumbs up when asked if she was feeling better.