President Trump recently completed his “annual” physical at Walter Reed Medical Center (his
previous “annual” physicals were in October 2025 and April 2025). The president is again
bragging constantly that he “aced” his cognitive assessment, stating that this accomplishment
clearly confirms his intellectual superiority. He loves to point out that this is the fourth time he
has “aced” this test.
The problem is that the test he is bragging about is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test,
which is designed to screen for early signs of dementia. As a physician who has administered
this test with some frequency, I can tell you that the test has nothing to do with intelligence
and is designed to be successfully completed by anyone who is not suffering from dementia,
even including those of average or low average intelligence.
Trump correctly indicates that, early in the test, the questions are easier, requiring the person
to correctly identify an animal. He then relates that he was given five words to remember and
30 minutes later was asked to recall the five words, which he did correctly. This is interesting
because the test is designed to be completed in 10 minutes or less, so if he actually required 30
minutes to complete the test, that is not particularly impressive. Trump goes on to claim that
the questions get progressively harder and harder, with the final questions being nearly
impossible for the average person to answer correctly.
The president reports that the final question is, “Pick a number: ‘99’. Multiply by 9. Divide by 3.
Add 4,293. Divide by 2. Subtract 93. Divide by 9. What’s your answer?” In reality, there is no
math on the test other than to ask the person to subtract seven from 100 five times. The actual
final question on the test has six parts: “What is today’s exact date? What is the current
month? What is the year? What day of the week is it? What is the name of this place? What city
are we in?”
If the president truly believes that this test demonstrates his intellectual superiority, then he is
clearly not smart enough to understand that the test does not test intelligence, and successfully
passing the test is not a great intellectual accomplishment. The fact that he has been asked to
take this test four separate times is, in itself, concerning.
Robert Barnett
Defiance
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