Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump celebrated his crushing victory over the abortive Rebel Alliance of John Kasich and Ted Cruz in Tuesday night’s primaries by taking a victory lap on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Wednesday morning, and quickly brought his general election strategy into unsubtle relief. Asked to react to Hillary Clinton’s riff on women’s issues during her victory speech, Trump immediately went into a rant about Hillary “shouting,” reacted with an “ewww,” but when Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski pressed him on the issues that Hillary raised, Trump responded with nothing at all:

Brzezinski: It seems that would be the one area — perhaps — you say you have plans for Hillary. I would think she’s incredibly strong on these issues. Trump: I haven’t quite recovered, it’s early in the morning, from her shouting that message. I know a lot of people would say you can’t say that about a woman, because of course a woman doesn’t shout. The way she shouted that message was not, eww, that’s the way she said it, and I guess I’ll have to get used to a lot of that over the next four or five months. Brzezinski: What about issue pertaining to women she discussed including equal pay and right to choose. Trump: We’re going to do very well. We’re going to do very well with Hillary and women as soon as we start our process against her. We’re going to do very well.

Trump is deliberately inviting the charge of sexism, betting correctly that it will play to his ever-expanding base of support, and with the knowledge that he’s not actually the first candidate to accuse Hillary Clinton of shouting. That “honor,” of course, belongs to Bernie Sanders, who not coincidentally came up a few moments later in the interview.

Brzezinski gently exposed the sexism in Trump’s “shouting” remark by pointing out that Sanders pretty much does nothing but shout, and Trump immediately pivoted to Sanders’ attacks on Hillary’s judgment and qualifications, and very sincerely wished Sanders success in an independent bid for the presidency:

Brzezinski: So you said Hillary Clinton was shouting her message. Bernie Sanders shouts his message, too, right? Trump: Bernie Sanders has a message that’s interesting. I’m going to be taking a lot of things Bernie said and using them. I can reread some of his speeches and get some very good material. Many wish she shouldn’t be there. He said some things about her that are actually surprising. That essentially she has no right to even be running. She’s got bad judgment. When he said bad judgment, I said “sound bite!” But Bernie has been treated very badly by the Democrats and the Democratic party. Frankly, he should run as an independent, I think.

Time will tell how Trump’s strategy works out, but what he’s doing is political genius. Trump knows his appeal is tied directly to white male resentment (which isn’t just for white males), and he understands that his only shot at making inroads with women voters is to harness that resentment, and use it to directly attack Hillary on one of her strengths. Trump is drawing clear battle lines, and so is Hillary, and Trump is betting that enough men and the women who resent Hillary for making their men feel bad will put him over the top.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.