Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said he will have to slow down on the campaign trail after suffering a heart attack earlier this month.
Sanders was hospitalized in Las Vegas for three days last week after complaining about chest pains at an event. Sanders had two stents inserted and returned to Vermont to recover.
On Tuesday, the 78-year-old told lawmakers that he won’t be able to keep up the same pace on the campaign following his health scare.
“I think we’re going to change the nature of the campaign a bit,” Sanders said. “Make sure that I have the strength to do what I have to do.”
Asked what he meant, Sanders replied that he would no longer do “four rallies” a day.
“We were doing, you know, [in] some cases five or six meetings a day, three or four rallies and town meetings and meeting with groups of people,” Sanders said. “I don’t think I’m going to do that.”
Sanders’ daughter-in-law passes away:
Over the weekend, Sanders’ daughter-in-law Dr. Rainè Riggs passed away at the age of 46 just two days after being diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer.
Riggs was married to Sanders’ son, Levi, and had three children.
“How can the world ever be the same when it said goodbye to such a beautiful soul? It is simple…. our world will never be the same,” the family said. “I don’t know how our family will ever get over this loss as she was loved so much. I do know that we will continue on because we have to…. we promised her we would.”
Will Sanders drop out?
Sanders did not hint that he would end his campaign but conceded that voters would take his health into account.
“Everything that happens every day weighs on how people feel about you,” he said. “And my own view is that — and I think it’s the voters’ view — you look at the totality of who a candidate is. You look at what that candidate stands for, the integrity of that candidate, the history of that candidate.”
His campaign downplayed his remarks.
“As Bernie said, we are going to have an active campaign,” campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in a statement. “Instead of a breakneck series of events that lap the field, we are going to keep a marathoner’s pace that still manages to outrun everyone else.”
