Trump’s obsession with cognitive tests is only making things worse for him: analysis

President Donald Trump is "incessant" when it comes to boasting about his allegedly perfect cognitive test result, but according to a new analysis from MS NOW, this is not having his desired effect in the slightest, as record numbers of the public begin to doubt his mental fitness for office.

Steve Benen is a longtime contributor for MS NOW and a producer for host Rachel Maddow. On Monday, he published a piece analyzing Trump's obsessive compulsion to tout cognitive tests as proof that he is not suffering cognitive decline in his advanced age.

"If his public remarks are any indication, few topics are of greater interest to Donald Trump than cognitive tests," Benen wrote. "The president has long struggled to understand the point of these tests, but that hasn’t stopped him from his obsessive boasts about being able to pass exams used to identify dementia, mental deterioration and neurodegenerative diseases."

At the end of last week, Trump once again bragged about his cognitive tests, going on "an extended riff" in front of "a supportive crowd in Florida," acting as if it is impressive to be taking such tests, and suggesting that his much-hated predecessor, Barack Obama, would fail one.

"I mean, you get a guy who gets in there, he’s got a good line of crap. He gets in and all of a sudden you’re stuck with a man who’s a moron. This is not good," Trump said.

Benen also cited an earlier piece in which he noted how much Trump appears to be misunderstanding the point of these tests in the first place. Aside from the fact that taking so many in a relatively short amount of time indicates considerable worries about his possible decline by the people around him, Trump has also repeatedly acted as if passing them means that "he’d been declared the smartest person on Earth."

Despite Trump's tendency to harp on his supposed cognitive test results, he does not appear to be fooling anyone, with a new poll out from Pew Research finding widespread belief among Americans that his brain is not as "perfect" as he likes to claim.

"But just as important is the degree to which Trump’s fixation on the subject doesn’t seem to be persuading anyone," Benen wrote. "As recently as November 2024, when he won a second term, a Pew Research Center poll found that 55% of Americans considered the Republican to be 'mentally sharp.' That number has now dropped to 44%, with slides among Democrats, independents and even GOP voters."

He concluded: "If the president wants to reassure the public he’s mentally fit to serve, he’ll have to try something other than obsessing over his alleged successes on dementia tests."