President Trump once again brought up the results of a cognitive test he took in an interview with Fox News Wednesday night. He described the memory portion of the exam, saying he had to repeat a series of words multiple times — offering as an example, “Person, woman, man, camera, TV.”
Mr. Trump told Fox News medical correspondent Dr. Marc Siegel that he requested the cognitive test “a little less than a year ago” because critics had questioned his mental fitness.
“If you’re in the office of the presidency, we have to be sharp,” Mr. Trump said, adding he asked then-White House doctor Ronny Jackson for the exam. “It was 30 or 35 questions. The first questions are very easy, the last questions are much more difficult.”
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Mr. Trump explained the memory part of the test, and said his results impressed doctors.
“It’s like, you’ll go, ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV’,” he said. “So, they’d say, ‘Could you repeat that?’ So, I said, yeah — person, woman, man, camera, TV.”
According to Mr. Trump, he had to recall the phrase again later during the test and was given “extra points” because he said it in order.
“They say, ‘Nobody gets it in order,'” he said, referring to the doctors. “It’s actually not that easy, but for me it was easy. And that’s not an easy question.”
“They say, ‘That’s amazing,'” he added. “‘How did you do that?’ I do it because I have, like, a good memory. Because I’m cognitively there.”
He said his Democratic rival Joe Biden should also take the test.
“Honestly, he should take the test,” the president said. “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. Because we’re dealing with people that want to do very bad things to us.”
Mr. Trump didn’t specify exactly which type of cognitive test he took, or when. His latest comments come more than two years after his last reported cognitive assessment test. During a routine physical in January 2018, the president took a test called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), which is “a cognitive screening test designed to assist Health Professionals in the detection of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease,” according to its website.
Sample questions from the exam include drawing the hands on a clock, naming pictures of animals, and repeating a list of numbers forwards and backwards.
