President Trump said in an interview Wednesday that Democrat Joseph R. Biden has an “obligation” to take a test of his mental abilities to show voters that he’s “sharp” enough to handle foreign adversaries.
“Honestly, he should take the test,” Mr. Trump told Dr. Marc Siegel on Fox News. “In a way, he has an obligation to, because you have to be able to show this country that the person that we’re picking as leader is sharp.”
He added, “we’re dealing with people that want to do very bad things to us, if they had the chance. And you have to be sharper than them.”
Mr. Trump reiterated that he took a cognitive test about a year ago, including repeating five names given to him in order, and performed well.
“It’s actually not that easy. But, for me, it was easy,” the president said. “I have, like, a good memory, because I’m cognitively there.”
He said Mr. Biden “should take that test, because something’s going on.”
“And I say this with respect. I mean, it’s going to probably happen to all of us, right?” the president said. “But we can’t take a chance of it happening. When you’re dealing with Russia, when you’re — and there’s nobody been tougher to Russia than me, nobody been tougher to China than me. I can tell you right now, they would love to see Joe Biden, instead of Trump. …We have to have somebody that is sharp. If this person isn’t sharp — because, I can tell you, President Xi [of China] is sharp. President Putin [of Russia] is sharp. [Turkish President] Erdogan is sharp. You don’t have any non-sharp people that you’re dealing with. And we can’t have somebody that’s not 100 percent.”
