KEY POINTS

  • The test generally given to seniors consists of being given a list of three words, then being asked to draw a clock, then being asked to repeat the words
  • Trump said his doctors told him no one gets the words in order
  • Trump said he was given a test consisting of 30 to 35 questions

 

President Trump is bragging about passing a cognitive test given to seniors to determine the onset of dementia and other mental impairments, the latest salvo in his attempt to raise questions about his presumptive opponent’s mental acuity.

Trump challenged presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to take the same test, saying he has an obligation to take it.

“I can hardly wait to compare my cognitive capability to the cognitive capability of the man I'm running against,” Biden, 77, has said.

Trump, 74, in a Fox News interview Wednesday, said he answered 30 to 35 questions that he said increased in difficulty, highlighting a memory question.

“It’s like you’ll go, ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ So they say, ‘Could you repeat that?’ So I said, ‘Yeah.’ So it’s, ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ OK, that’s very good. If you get it in order, you get extra points.”

He said he was then asked “10 minutes, 15, 20 minutes later” if he could remember the “first question.”

“Not the first, but the tenth question. ‘Give us that again. Can you do that again?’ And you go, ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV,’” Trump said.

Trump said his doctors told him no one gets the words in order, but he got extra points for doing so.

“It’s actually not that easy. But for me, it was easy,” Trump said, adding his doctors were amazed.

Dr. Marc Siegel, who conducted the interview, on Thursday gushed over Trump’s test results.

The memory test most often given to seniors generally lists three items. Seniors are then asked to draw a clock before being asked to repeat the items. The test for Alzheimer’s consists of five questions.

Trump apparently took the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which tests for impairment caused by a variety of diseases and disorders from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s to brain tumors and head trauma.