Drudge Questions Clinton’s Health With Months-Old Pic Of Her Slipping On Stairs

The Drudge Report on Sunday highlighted a months-old photo of Hillary Clinton slipping on a flight of stairs to suggest that the Democratic nominee’s health may be failing.

Photos released by Reuters and Getty in late February showed two men holding Clinton by the arms after she slipped on a staircase while campaigning in South Carolina ahead of that state’s primary. As CNN’s Brian Stelter noted, right-wing Twitter users began circulating the images on Saturday night, mocking Clinton’s supposed frailty with no mention of when those photos were taken.

By Sunday, a right-wing blog called The American Mirror published a post about the “SHOCK PHOTO” that called Clinton “unstable” and asked when the “mainstream media” would question the former secretary of state’s “health status.”

Drudge quickly picked up the thread that afternoon, posting the image in a splash on his site’s homepage along with a link to the American Mirror story and the headline “Hillary Conquers The Stairs.” As of Monday morning, the post had been moved just below the splash. Neither the original article nor The Drudge Report had been amended to note that the photo was over six months old, or that the caption on the image said that she had simply slipped.

Instead, Drudge supplied several links to previous spills Clinton had taken, dating back to 2009.

Clinton’s health has been a subject of consistent scrutiny since 2012, with conservative commenters calling out an on-camera coughing fit as a sign that the 68-year-old may be physically unfit to hold office. This criticism intensified after she was treated for a blood clot in her head in January 2013.

Clinton has received a clean bill of health from her personal physician, who released a letter in July summarizing her medical history.