President Donald Trump went off-script on Monday to boast once again about passing a test designed to detect cognitive decline associated with dementia. "I've taken three," he claimed. "No president, think of this, has ever taken one." Trump stated that he likes to take the test whenever someone calls him a moron.
However, the test he described, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), is not an intelligence test. It is a brief exam intended to detect signs of cognitive decline linked to dementia. The test's creator has said the assessment is designed to be easy for anyone with normal cognition. This is the same "person, woman, man, camera, TV" test he bragged about passing in 2020 during his first term, except now he has admitted to taking it at least two more times since then.
Trump claimed that the media only shows the first questions, which he admitted are "very easy," including identifying common animals. "By the time you get to the middle, they're tough," he insisted. A typical middle question asks the subject to name words starting with a specific letter and count backward from 100 by subtracting 7 each time (93, 86, 79, etc.).
Trump made similar comments on Friday when he spoke at a senior community in Florida, where he also bragged about passing three cognitive tests.
The fact that he has taken an exam intended to check for a serious cognitive disorder not just once but three times led many to ask the same question: Why? Critics demanded answers on social media. Ted Lieu tweeted, "Dear @WhiteHouse: Why are cognitive tests continuously being administered to trump? This is not normal. What are you hiding from the American people?" Another user commented, "He's boasting about having had to take it THREE times, not realizing that they only make you take it if they think something's wrong with you." Jennifer Erin Valent wrote, "To me, the fact that he keeps bragging about having to take three cognitive tests is, in and of itself, evidence of cognitive problems." Hemant Mehta stated, "There's a reason no one else has to take dementia tests." Mike Drucker noted, "'Every time someone says I'm stupid I take a test where I point at pictures of animals and say what animals they are' isn't the flex he thinks it is." Mehdi Hasan asked, "How is this not a SNL skit? How is this real? How can anyone with an IQ above 60 support this man or think he's anything other than insane?" Another user remarked, "Trump is literally bragging, repeatedly about taking a dementia test and you STILL can't get the political media to talk about his age. It's insane." Others echoed similar sentiments, with one saying, "this is not the distinction you think it is Don," and another asking, "when they going to tell Donald they were testing him for dementia." A comment read, "This dude keeps talking about this every single time he's in front of a microphone… Unsolicited. It was a dementia screener. Most people don't have to take them… definitely not multiple times." Ben Yelin noted, "We're in Year 6 of the President bragging that he did well on a dementia test." Another user stated, "Still doesn't know the difference between an IQ test and a cognitive test." Zaid Jilani explained, "A cognitive test is basically to check if you're not losing your mind. It is not to gauge your intelligence, skills, or understandings. Ironically, this makes Trump sound like a moron." Melanie D'Arrigo commented, "It's not a confidence booster that the man with the nuclear codes repeatedly brags about this." Spiro's Ghost added, "He knows his brain is slipping which in his damaged brain forces him to repeat this bizarreness over and over again which just makes people talk even more about his conspicuous dementia. Crazy."
