Christian Smith
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event Saturday, June 15, 2024, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osório)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump suggested Saturday night that President Joe Biden “should take a cognitive test,” only to confuse whoever administered the test to him in the next sentence.
The former president and presumptive Republican nominee referred to Texas Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson, who was a White House physician during part of his presidency, as “Ronny Johnson.” The moment arrived when Trump was questioning Biden’s mental acuity, something he often does during the campaign 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.
Seconds later, he continued: “Doctor Ronny Johnson. Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor and he said I was the healthiest president, he said, in history, so I really liked him right away.
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, will run for a second term a centerpiece of his campaign. But online critics quickly seized on Saturday night’s gaffe, with Biden’s campaign — which has long battled criticism over the Democratic president’s verbal blunders — posting a clip of the moment minutes later.
Trump took the cognitive test in 2018 at his own request, Jackson told reporters at the time. The test was developed to detect early signs of memory loss and other mild cognitive impairments.
Trump’s Montreal Cognitive Assessment includes remembering a list of spoken words; listen to a list of random numbers and repeat them backwards; name as many words as possible that begin with, say, the letter F in one minute; draw a cube accurately; and describe concrete ways that two objects – such as a train and a bicycle – are similar.
Trump later said he had to remember and accurately recite a list of words in order: “People. Woman. Man. Camera. TELEVISION.”
During the same speech in Detroit, Trump also referenced a video clip widely circulated online in Republican circles where Biden is seen during the recently concluded Group of Seven summit in Italy, watching 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 pointing at. A more complete angle of the same scene, however, shows that the president turned to face a parachutist who had landed.
Still, Trump seized on the video clip, falsely describing Biden turning “to look at the trees,” drawing laughter and boos from the crowd.
The Biden campaign issued a statement dismissing the clip as misleadingly cut and accusing those who released it of “doctoring the video to fabricate lies.”
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