President Donald Trump, 79, spent Monday bragging about his performance on a dementia screening test to reporters, once again confusing the assessment designed to detect cognitive decline in elderly patients with a measure of superior intelligence.
The president challenged Democratic Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 36, and Jasmine Crockett, 44, to match his prowess at identifying zoo animals and performing second-grade skip counting exercises, calling both women "low IQ" and claiming they could never pass the "very hard" exam he conquered at Walter Reed Medical Center.
Trump described the Montreal Cognitive Assessment—a screening tool specifically created to identify early signs of Alzheimer's disease and dementia—as "really aptitude tests" and outlined the exam's challenging early questions: "a tiger, an elephant, a giraffe." He warned that the later questions, which allegedly reach numbers "10 and 20 and 25," would prove impossible for the congresswomen.
The test creator, Canadian neurologist Dr. Ziad Nasreddine, previously explained to NBC News that "there are no studies showing that this test is correlated to IQ tests" and that "the purpose of it was not to determine persons who have a low IQ level." Nasreddine apparently remains unaware that the commander-in-chief has spent years publicly celebrating his ability to correctly identify common mammals as evidence of intellectual dominance.
Sample questions from the MoCA include starting at 60 and subtracting backwards by seven—a skill researchers note is typically taught to second and third graders as "skip counting" to prepare them for multiplication tables—along with naming words that start with the letter B and explaining what a banana and an orange have in common. The president described these tasks as "very hard."
The revelation came as Trump also disclosed he underwent magnetic resonance imaging during his October visit to Walter Reed, his second medical exam in six months. "I got an MRI. It was perfect," Trump told reporters, declining to explain why doctors ordered the scan and instead telling journalists to "ask the doctors."
The 79-year-old president, who is the oldest person ever inaugurated to the office, claimed his doctors said the results were "some of the best reports, for the age, they've ever seen," though the White House has released only vague summaries describing "advanced imaging" and "preventive health assessments."
Trump has faced ongoing scrutiny over regular bruising on his right hand, which he has appeared to cover with heavy makeup, and swelling in his lower legs. Officials attributed the hand bruising to his "constantly working and shaking hands all day every day."
Meanwhile, Representative Ocasio-Cortez responded to Trump's cognitive test challenge on social media: "Out of curiosity, did those doctors ask you to draw a clock by any chance? Was that part hard for you, too?"—referencing one of the MoCA's standard dementia screening tasks that the president has now "aced" on at least three occasions since 2018.
