Holder: Trump May Lack ‘Intellectual Heft’ Needed To Be President

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Former Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday night suggested that Donald Trump may not be “very smart” because he “sees everything in black and white terms.”

CBS News’ Charlie Rose asked Holder about his Wednesday comment questioning whether Trump has “the gray matter” necessary to be president.

“You mean he’s not smart enough to be president? Rose asked.

“Yeah, I wonder,” Holder responded. “I sometimes think that he hides behind a certain bravado to hide a lack of substance that he has.”

“A person this far along in the process, I think we would know a little more about what his plans are. We’d know more about who his mentors might have been, who his intellectual guides might be. And I don’t have any sense that there is any of that to him,” he continued. “He seems to me to be a very shallow man.”

The former attorney general then said that Trump views the world in “black and white.”

“One of the other things that makes me doubt his intellectual heft is he sees everything in black and white terms, and that is — that’s the realm of people who aren’t very smart, because the world really — the tough stuff is in the gray areas,” he said. “That’s where you have to delve and try to figure things out, and he has shown no interest and I would say no capacity to delve in and operate in those gray areas.”

Watch the clip:

View More: Politics News|Live News|More News Videos

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. Donnie Drumpf’s intellect is as short as his fingers.

  2. why would a really smart guy qualify his statement by using the word ‘may’?

  3. Wow, this is fabulous trolling. Holder, a black man, taunts Trump, a racist white man, about not being smart enough, all while repeatedly talking about “black and white”.
    ho ho ho.

    This is Eustace level trolling.

  4. I think Donnie’s soon going to really understand the expression “death by a thousand cuts”…

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

57 more replies

Participants

Avatar for system1 Avatar for austin_dave Avatar for pluckyinky Avatar for texlib52 Avatar for old_curmudgeon Avatar for matthew1961 Avatar for dv01 Avatar for krusher Avatar for steviedee111 Avatar for wwss Avatar for cliffhendroval Avatar for mantan Avatar for sniffit Avatar for uggswell_p_gravel Avatar for ignoreland Avatar for tao Avatar for captaincommonsense Avatar for jcblues Avatar for pine Avatar for darrtown Avatar for antisachetdethe Avatar for omahhum Avatar for lizzymom Avatar for centralasiaexpat

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: