Trump details ‘difficult’ cognitive test he says he aced

President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his mental fitness to hold office and described the exam he allegedly took assessing his cognitive capabilities, claiming the doctors administering it were amazed by his ability to recall a simple string of words.

In an interview with Fox News medical contributor Marc Siegel, the president said he asked his physician upon his last hospital visit “a little less than a year ago” whether there was “some kind of a cognitive test that I could take” in order to “shut these people up,” referring to critics who had questioned his mental acuity.

“It was 30 or 35 questions. The first questions are very easy. The last questions are much more difficult. Like a memory question,” Trump continued. “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.”

Then, “10 minutes, 15, 20 minutes later” in the cognitive exam, “they say, ‘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 recounted.

The president said doctors had warned him “nobody gets it in order,” and he assessed that “it’s actually not that easy. But for me, it was easy.” Trump also emphasized that the medical professionals conducting the exam “don’t tell you” they plan on asking patients to repeat the word series, and said they were impressed by him doing so.

“‘Can you do it?’ And you go, ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV,’” Trump said. “They say, ‘That’s amazing, how did you do that?’ I do it because I have, like, a good memory. Because I’m cognitively there.”

Trump went on to again assert without evidence that former Vice President Joe Biden was suffering significant cognitive decline, repeating his calls for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to be examined, as well.

“Joe should take that test because something is going on, and I say this with respect,” Trump said. “I mean, [it’s] going to probably happen to all of us, right? You know, it’s going to happen. But we can’t take a chance of it happening.”

Trump argued the U.S. presidency was a “very important job, to put it mildly. There’s nothing like it.” He said those who hold the office “need stamina. You need physical health, and you need mental health.”

In a Fox News poll published Sunday, 47 percent of voters said Biden had the “mental soundness to serve effectively as president,” while 43 percent said the same about Trump. More than half of voters, 51 percent, said Trump was not mentally fit to serve as president, but just 39 percent said Biden was mentally unfit.

Earlier this month, the president revealed to Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he had “very recently” taken a cognitive exam at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, saying he had “aced it” and that doctors were “very surprised. They said ‘That’s an unbelievable thing. Rarely does anybody do what you just did.’”

In an interview last weekend with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” Trump elaborated on the exam.

“Yes, the first few questions are easy, but I’ll bet you couldn’t even answer the last five questions. I bet you couldn’t. They get very hard, the last five questions,” Trump said. Wallace told the president he had taken the exam himself, and reported that the assorted questions asked patients to identify an elephant and count backward from 100.

The president did not directly contradict Wallace’s characterization of the exam, only deeming the veteran journalist’s account to be “all misrepresentation.”

The White House has not released the results of any such cognitive exam taken by the president, and Trump’s recollection of being evaluated raises several questions.

Last November, Trump made an unscheduled weekend visit to Walter Reed to “begin portions of his routine annual physical exam,” according to the White House. But the abrupt nature of Trump’s departure provoked concerns regarding his health, and Dr. Sean Conley, physician to the president, subsequently authored a memo refuting speculation that Trump had suffered from chest pain or another serious issue.

It is unclear whether the president was referring to this hospital visit in his most recent interview. Further complicating the timeline, Trump also said Thursday that he requested his cognitive exam from Dr. Ronny Jackson, the former physician to the president who departed the White House medical unit amid scandal in 2018.

The White House released another memo by Conley last month detailing the results of Trump’s latest physical. Conley concluded there was “no interval change” in Trump’s condition over the past year, writing that he “remains healthy” at 6-foot-3 and 244 pounds.