WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump Saturday evening, the president suggested Joe Biden “should have to take a cognitive test,” only to confuse who administered the test in the next sentence.
The former president and presumptive Republican nominee referred to the Republican representative from Texas. Ronny Jackson, who served as White House physician during part of his presidency, under the name “Ronny Johnson.” The moment came as Trump questioned Biden’s mental acuity, something he often does on the campaign trail and on social media.
“He doesn’t even know what the word “inflation” means. I think he should take a cognitive test like I did,” the former president said of Biden during a speech at a Turning Point Action convention in Detroit.
A few seconds later, he continued: “Doc Ronny Johnson. Does everyone know Texas Congressman Ronny Johnson? He was the White House physician and he said I was the healthiest president in history, according to him, so I immediately really liked him.”
Jackson was elected to Congress in 2021 and is one of Trump’s most vocal defenders on Capitol Hill.
Trump, who turned 78 on Friday, has made the question of whether Biden, 81, is a candidate for a second term, a centerpiece of his campaign. But online critics quickly seized on his Saturday night gaffe, with the Biden campaign – which has long pushed back against criticism of the The Democratic president’s verbal missteps – posting a clip of the moment a few minutes later.
Asset took the cognitive test in 2018 at his own request, Jackson told reporters at the time. The exam is designed to detect early signs of memory loss and other mild cognitive impairment.
Trump’s Montreal cognitive assessment includes memorizing a list of spoken words; listen to a list of random numbers and repeat them backwards; name as many words as possible starting with, say, the letter F in one minute; accurately draw a cube; and describing the concrete ways in which two objects – like a train and a bicycle – are similar.
Trump later said that he had to remember and accurately recite a list of words in order: “No one. Women. Man. Camera. TV.”
During the same speech in Detroit, Trump also referenced a video clip widely circulated online in Republican circles, in which Biden is seen during the recently concluded election. Group of Seven summit in Italy watching the paratroopers land with flags of different nations.
A cropped version of the video shows Biden walking away from the leaders, turning his back and walking in the other direction. He gives a thumbs up, but it’s not clear who he’s waving at. A fuller angle of the same scene, however, shows that the president had turned toward a parachutist who had landed.
Trump nonetheless seized on the video clip, falsely depicting Biden turning “to look at the trees,” drawing laughter and boos from the crowd.
The Biden campaign released a statement dismissing the clip as misleadingly cropped and accusing those spreading it of “falsifying the video to make up lies.”
