President Donald Trump on Monday once again touted what he called a "perfect" score on a dementia screening exam, using the occasion to mock Democratic Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jasmine Crockett and challenge them to take the same test.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, the 79-year-old president described his exam at Walter Reed Medical Center as an "IQ test," claiming he had aced it and that his political opponents would not. "They have Jasmine Crockett, a low IQ person. AOC is low IQ," Trump said. "You give her an IQ test, have her pass, like the exams that I decided to take when I was at Walter Reed."
He continued, "Those are very hard. They're really aptitude tests, I guess, in a certain way, but they're cognitive tests. Let AOC go against Trump. Let Jasmine go against Trump. I don't think Jasmine could pass." Trump also recalled that the test included identifying pictures of animals: "The first couple questions are easy: a tiger, an elephant, a giraffe. When you get up to about five or six and then when you get up to 10 and 20 and 25, they couldn't come close to answering any of those questions."
Trump appeared to be referring to the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), a 10-minute screening tool used to detect early signs of dementia or Alzheimer's disease. The test evaluates memory, recall, and attention-not intelligence. According to The New Republic, the MoCA is not an IQ or aptitude measure but a medical exam used by clinicians to assess cognitive decline.
Dr. Ziad Nasreddine, the neurologist who created the MoCA in 1996, told NBC News that the test does not assess intelligence. "There are no studies showing that this test is correlated to IQ tests," Nasreddine said. "The purpose of it was not to determine people who have a low IQ level. It helps identify whether someone may have cognitive impairment."
Trump has frequently cited his test results as proof of his mental sharpness, especially in response to questions about his age and fitness for office. His physician, Dr. Sean Barbabella, confirmed in April that Trump scored a perfect 30 out of 30 on the MoCA during his annual exam at Walter Reed. NBC News previously reported that Trump achieved the same score in 2018.
The president told reporters that he recently underwent another round of medical testing, including lab work, imaging, and an MRI scan, which he claimed showed "perfect" results. "I'm in very good health, better than most," he said. "Everything they checked was perfect, absolutely perfect."
Trump's comments quickly drew criticism online, with many accusing him of conflating a clinical memory test with an intelligence exam. Representative Ocasio-Cortez, 36, and Representative Crockett, 44, have not publicly responded, though supporters circulated videos of their past congressional remarks defending their intellect and policy acumen.
