Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump publicly questioned Hillary Clinton’s mental state over the weekend.
“She short circuited, she used the term ’short-circuited.' She took a little short circuit in the brain,” Trump said at a campaign even in New Hampshire on Saturday. Trump was referring to a statement that the Democratic nominee had made where she told a group of black and Hispanic journalists that “I may have short-circuited it, and for that I will try to clarify.”
Trump used it as an opportunity to go after his opponent, saying he’s not sure if Clinton is up to the task of being president.
“And she’s got problems, I mean, if we had real people, this would be a real problem for her, but I think that the people of this country don’t want somebody that’s going to short-circuit up here,” he said.
Clinton used the term as she was attempting to clarify misleading statements about her use of a private email server. “I was pointing out in both of those instances, that Director Comey had said that my answers in my FBI interview were truthful. That really is the bottom line here,” she said, according to CNN. “What I told the FBI, which he said was truthful, is consistent with what I have said publicly. I may have short-circuited and for that I will try to clarify.”
Her statement drew criticism from a number of fact-checkers, along with Trump. “Anybody whose mind ‘SHORT CIRCUITS’ is not fit to be our president! Look up the word ‘BRAINWASHED,’” he wrote on Twitter.
Going further, Trump told the crowd in New Hampshire, “Honestly I don’t think she’s all there.” He added that Clinton, a former secretary of state, was “totally unhinged.”
In response to Trump’s comments on Saturday, the Clinton campaign issued a statement that read, “It’s unfortunate that Trump’s only method of dealing with his own disastrous week is to lash out with more absurd personal attacks,” The Associated Press reported.