Trump Brags About “Hard” IQ Test — It Was Actually a Dementia Screen

President Donald Trump appeared to boast about his performance on a cognitive screening test while speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday, Oct. 27.

The 79-year-old president claimed he had recently taken what he called an “IQ test” at Walter Reed Medical Center and challenged Democratic Representatives Jasmine Crockett, 44, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 36, to take the same exam.

“They have Jasmine Crockett, a low IQ person. AOC is low IQ,” Trump said. “Give her an IQ test — have her pass the exams I took at Walter Reed. Those are hard tests — really aptitude tests, or cognitive tests. Let AOC go against Trump.”

He continued, “Let Jasmine go against Trump. The first few questions are easy — a tiger, an elephant, a giraffe — but when you get to 10, 20, 25, they couldn’t get close to answering those.”

Trump appeared to be referring to the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), a 10-minute exam designed to detect early signs of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, according to The New Republic.

In April, Trump’s physician said the president had completed the MoCA during his annual physical at Walter Reed and received a perfect score. NBC News previously reported that Trump also took the same test in 2018 and again scored 30 out of 30.

The former president has often cited the test as proof of his mental sharpness. In 2020, he famously described one section on Fox News: “It’s like, person, woman, man, camera, TV. They ask you to repeat it, and if you do it in order, you get extra points. Nobody gets it in order. For me, it was easy.”

However, Dr. Ziad Nasreddine, the Canadian neurologist who developed the MoCA in 1996, told NBC News the test is not meant to measure intelligence. “There are no studies showing it’s related to IQ,” Nasreddine said. “It’s designed to detect cognitive impairment, not to determine someone’s IQ.”

Trump returned to Walter Reed earlier this month for additional medical evaluations, including lab work, imaging, and preventive screenings, according to White House physician Dr. Sean Barbabella. While Trump told reporters his MRI results were “perfect,” he did not say why the scan was performed or if he retook the cognitive test during that visit.