President Donald Trump went off-script on Monday to brag ― again ― about passing a test meant to detect cognitive decline linked to dementia.
“I’ve taken three,” he boasted. “No president, think of this, has ever taken one.”
Trump said 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’s a brief exam meant to detect the signs of cognitive decline associated with dementia. As such, its creator has said the assessment is intended to be easy for anyone of normal cognition.
It’s the same “person, woman, man, camera, TV” test he crowed about passing in 2020, during his first term ― except now, he’s admitted to taking it at least two more times since then.
Trump said the media only shows the first questions, which he admitted are “very easy,” and includes 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’s taken an exam intended to check for a serious cognitive disorder not just once, but three times, had many asking the same question: Why?
Critics demanded answers ― and more ― on X: