U.S. President Donald Trump attends the commencement ceremony at West Point Military Academy in West Point, New York, U.S., May 24, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
President Donald Trump loves to brag about how many cognitive tests he has taken recently and how much he has, allegedly, aced them. Now, however, one very important person has spoken out about why those are not the achievements Trump thinks they are: the doctor who designed the test.
In a report published Tuesday, Australia's 9News spoke with Canadian neurologist Ziad Nasreddine, creator of the Montreal Cognitive Test, which Trump has been taking multiple times throughout his second term. As MS NOW's Steven Benen recently observed, Trump has touted his results on these tests as if passing them means that "he’d been declared the smartest person on Earth," but in reality, the questions and the requirements are intentionally rudimentary.
"Sample questions include drawing an analog clock with the correct time, with points given for correct numbering," 9News explained. "Another question is to name as many words as they can in a minute beginning with the letter B. A failing grade would be less than 11 words. The final questions are to know the date, day of the week, their location and what city they are in."
"It wasn't designed to be a test of IQ," Nasreddine told the outlet. "It was designed to assess normal cognitive performance."
Trump's boasting about these tests seems to be accelerating, as are reports about the public's spiraling trust in his mental acuity.
"As recently as November 2024, when he won a second term, a Pew Research Center poll found that 55 percent of Americans considered the Republican to be 'mentally sharp,'" Benen wrote on Monday. "That number has now dropped to 44 percent, with slides among Democrats, independents and even GOP voters."
Nasreddine further explained that his test, which is utilized in roughly 200 countries, has an average final score of 26 out of 30. Only around 10 percent of people Trump's age, he added,
"I think he's proud that he is able to demonstrate that his cognition is fine," the doctor said. "Obviously, he likes to maybe boast about it because of his age, and people might think that at his age, you might have more difficulty with your cognition."
Other observers have pointed out that the frequency with which Trump is supposedly taking cognitive tests might be cause for alarm, as it signals a possible concern that, in his advanced age and with a notable family history of dementia, his faculties might begin to falter soon.
