Donald Trump on Hillary Clinton: ‘'She’s Highly Overrated in the Brains Department'’

Donald Trump cast the presidential race as a sort of athletic contest in a Monday interview with The Fix, insisting he has a history of performing under pressure while Hillary Clinton, his near-certain Democratic opponent, withers under that sort of scrutiny.

"She is highly overrated in the brains department," Trump said of Clinton. "She is really bad at reacting under pressure." Of himself, Trump said "I was always a good athlete," adding: "Under pressure, some good athletes become bad athletes" -- referring to Clinton.

Trump cast Clinton's track record in public office as evidence of her inability to handle the pressures of the spotlight. "Whether it was the war or the emails got worse and worse and worse," he said.

On the email front at least, Trump appears to be on solid ground. New polling from The Washington Post-ABC News shows that 56 percent of Americans said they were dissatisfied with the decision by the FBI to not recommend an indictment of Clinton in the wake of the organization's investigation.

THE WASHINGTON POST

But Trump could get into politically dicey territory by suggesting that Clinton isn't smart enough to be president or not able to perform when the bright lights are on her.

Six in 10 registered voters in the June WaPo-ABC poll said that Clinton is "qualified" to be president. Just more than one in three (36 percent) voters said the same of Trump.

Then there are Trump's broader problems with female voters. Trump took only 34 percent of the female vote in the Post's June survey -- well below Mitt Romney's 44 percent and John McCain's 43 percent among women in 2012 and 2008, respectively.

Given all of that, casting doubt on Clinton's brain power would seem to be a strategic error by Trump.

Source: Washinghton Post