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Former President Donald Trump, 77, demanded Thursday that President Joe Biden take a cognitive test after the White House insisted the 81-year-old commander-in-chief’s doctors said he didn’t need one. On Wednesday, Biden made an unannounced trip to Walter Reed in Bethesda to take part in his annual physical, with Physician to the President, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, saying there were ‘no new concerns’ with the president’s health and labeling the Democrat ‘fit to serve.’
At Wednesday’s press briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (pictured) told reporters Biden did not take a cognitive test because his team of doctors ‘do not believe that he needs one.’ Trump, Biden’s likely 2024 general election opponent, disagreed with that assessment.
‘Crooked Joe Biden must take a Cognitive Test,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday morning. ‘Maybe that way we would be able to find out why he makes such terrible decisions. I took two of them, and ACED them both (no mistakes!). All Presidents, or people wanting to become President, should mandatorily take the test!’ Trump also said.
The ex-president echoed that point during a radio interview Thursday on the Katz Show on Richmond’s Newsradio WRVA. ‘I just looked, and he took his test yesterday, but they didn’t do a cognitive test,’ Trump said, again making the point that he ‘aced’ both his tests. ‘Which they say is a very unusual thing, almost unheard of,’ Trump said. ‘And he should take – I actually think a president should be forced to take a cognitive test if you want to know the truth,’ the former president added. ‘But somebody said it’s unconstitutional, so whatever.’
Jean- Pierre said that Biden didn’t take a cognitive exam because ‘the president passes a cognitive test every day!’ ‘Every day,’ she reiterated. ‘As he moves from one topic to another topic trying – understanding the granular level of these topics. You saw him talk about … fighting crime today. Tomorrow, he’s going to go to the border. Next week, he’s going to give a State of the Union address,’ she continued. ‘And so, we have to keep that in mind. This is a very rigorous job. And the president has been able to do – do this job every day for the past three years.’
Trump first took the M ontreal Cognitive Assessment, or MoCA, when he sat for his physical as president in 2018.
While doctors usually administer the test to older patients if there are dementia concerns, Trump asked his White House physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson – who’s now a Republican member of Congress – to perform it during his 2018 physical. Jackson then appeared in the White House briefing room and described Trump as being ‘very sharp’ and ‘very articulate,’ explaining he had only performed the cognitive test on the president because he was asked. Trump colorfully described taking the tests during an interview with Fox News in July 2020.
‘They give you 35 questions. The first questions are very easy. The last questions are much more difficult,’ he said. ‘Like a memory question, it would go, like you’ll go “person, woman, man, camera, TV,”‘ Trump said. ‘So they say could you repeat that. So I said yeah. So it’s “person, woman, man, camera, TV.” OK, that’s very good. If y ou get it in order you get extra points,’ the then-president added.
Trump’s remaining rival Nikki Haley, 52, kicked off her campaign a year ago by telling a crowd in Charleston that politicians older than 75 should have to take ‘mandatory mental competency tests.’
During a campaign event Thursday in Richmond, she made her usual points about Biden and Trump’s age but didn’t launch any fresh attacks on Biden. Her campaign, which has barred DailyMail.com from campaign events after reporting on two alleged affairs, didn’t respond to a request for comment on Biden not taking a cognitive test as part of his annual physical.
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