‘We’re going to get back into the groove of a very vigorous campaign,’ 2020 candidate says, a week after having a heart attack

Bernie Sanders said he intends to compete as aggressively as ever for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination after suffering a heart attack last week, saying he “misspoke” when he told reporters he planned to scale back the relentless pace of his campaign for health reasons.

Trump to meet with China for talks aimed at ending trade war Read more

In an interview with NBC News that aired on Wednesday, the 78-year-old Sanders forcefully defended his campaign’s handling of the incident amid criticism that aides should have disclosed his condition sooner.

“I misspoke the other day. I said a word I should not have said and media drives me a little bit nuts to make a big deal about it,” Sanders said in the interview. “We’re going to get back into the groove of a very vigorous campaign, I love doing rallies and I love doing town meetings.”

Sitting alongside his wife Jane, Sanders struck a more defiant tone as he made clear that he had no intention of leaving the race. “We’re going to win this thing.”

But just a day prior, he sounded cautious. Speaking to reporters outside his home in Burlington, Vermont, Sanders said he had felt “more fatigued than I usually have been” during the previous two months of his campaign and that he “should have listened to those symptoms”.

“We’re going to change the nature of the campaign a bit,” he said – a striking concession for a candidate who prides himself on keeping a relentless schedule, even by the standards of a presidential campaign.As a leading candidate in a tightening race for the Democratic nomination, the incident has invited fresh scrutiny of Sanders’ age – and the viability of his presidential campaign. At 78, if he won the 2020 election against Donald Trump, he would be the oldest president ever to take office.

Sanders aides announced last Wednesday that he had experienced chest pains at a campaign event in Las Vegas the evening before and was taken to the hospital, where he had two stents inserted to open a blocked artery. After he left the hospital, the campaign released a statement from his doctor saying he had been diagnosed with a myocardial infarction – a heart attack.

Sanders said he had been aware he had a heart attack on Tuesday night, when he entered the hospital. Over the next few days, he said, the campaign was trying to “to understand what, in fact, is going on”, and to discuss the episode with his doctor.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bernie and Jane Sanders on the campaign trail in Florida in June. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

“I think we did it appropriately and did it as quickly as we could,” he said. “No apologies.”

The episode has injected a fresh bout of uncertainty into the primary race. Sanders has been a driving force behind the major policy debates, challenging party orthodoxy on healthcare, higher education and climate change. Days before, he reported a third-quarter fundraising total of $25.3m, the largest of any Democratic candidates. But he has lost ground to Elizabeth Warren, an ideological ally who has emerged as the top-polling progressive alternative to former vice-president Joe Biden.

“There is a heavier burden now on Bernie and his campaign to show they can win,” said Rebecca Katz, a New York-based Democratic strategist.

But a less hectic schedule could help focus his campaign’s message as he returns to the trail after several days, she said.

“If they held one marquee event a day, maybe there’s more space for his message to resonate,” Katz said, adding: “A slowed-down Bernie Sanders is still a much more active candidate than what we’ve seen from a lot of other presidential campaigns.”

Sanders is recuperating at home, and it is unclear whether he will return to the campaign trail before the fourth Democratic debate in Westerville, Ohio, on Tuesday, which he plans to attend.

The high-stakes appearance will test Sanders’ durability over the course of the three-hour primetime event as he shares a stage with 11 of his leading rivals on the same stage. With millions of viewers watching, the debate offers an opportunity for Sanders to confront the inevitable questions about his health and the viability of his campaign.

“He’s got to come back in the debate and show the American people and especially Democratic primary voters that he’s fully capable of performing and fulfilling the job of being president of the United States,” said Mark Longabaugh, a veteran Democratic strategist and a former adviser to Sanders’ 2016 campaign.

“Bernie Sanders just outraised the entire field,” he added. “He’s still a formidable candidate.”

As Sanders recovers, the staff and volunteers have been stepping up to keep the campaign moving “full speed ahead”. The campaign introduced a new policy this week that would reduce the influence of corporate money in American politics. In a campaign video released on Thursday, Sanders sought to rally his supporters.

“I got to tell you, that even as I sat and lay down in that hospital bed in Las Vegas, this issue of the struggle that we are engaged in just, you know, permeated my mind,” Sanders said, speaking directly into the camera. “We are going to win this struggle. History is on our side.”

Meanwhile, surrogates for the senator have fanned out across the early states, and Congressman Ro Khanna, a national co-chair of the Sanders campaign, said he believes the incident has galvanized supporters.

“People are saying I’ll do an extra shift. I’ll talk to more voters. I’ll pick some of the slack while Sanders recuperates,” said Khanna, who stepped in for Sanders at events in Iowa last weekend.

The California Democrat said the episode is an opportunity for Sanders to connect the man and the message – a feature of politicking that has always been difficult for the senator.

“He can use this experience to show that he will give everything he has to this fight,” Khanna said. “That, for him, it’s more than just a campaign for the presidency. It’s the cause of his life.”

Oliver Laughland contributed to this story