Donald Trump Insists His Joe Biden And Barack Obama Mix-Ups Are Intentional
A mistake isn't a mistake if it's intentional — at least according to former President Donald Trump, who used his social media platform Truth Social to address concerns about him mixing up former President Barack Obama and current President Joe Biden. The business mogul-turned-president has swapped out the names of his political rivals at least seven times on the campaign trail, per Forbes' November 2023 report.
Trump's apparent mix-ups of the former and sitting presidents have caused many media outlets and fellow politicians to raise concerns over his mental aptitude. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who at one point was in Trump's good graces but is now running against him as a Republican presidential candidate, has kept his own tally of Trump's goofs on his X, formerly known as Twitter, account.
However, Trump insisted on Truth Social that his replacing Biden's name with Obama's and vice versa isn't just harmless. It's on purpose. The former president indicated that he switches out his political rivals' names sarcastically before reaffirming his "excellent" cognitive health.
Trump insists that he knows the difference between Biden and Obama
Donald Trump posted his lengthy explanation to Truth Social in the early morning of November 27, 2023, writing, "Whenever I sarcastically insert the name Obama for Biden as an indication that others may actually be having a very big influence in running our Country, Ron DeSanctimonious and his failing campaign apparatus, together with the Democrat's Radical Left "Disinformation Machine," go wild saying that 'Trump doesn't know the name of our President, (CROOKED!) Joe Biden. He must be cognitively impaired.'"
"No, I know both names very well, never mix them up, and know that they are destroying our Country," Trump continued. He said he had recently "aced" the cognitive portion of a physical exam and had received a similar perfect score during his required White House physical. According to The Washington Post, the test Trump took was the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which detects mild cognitive impairment.
Trump has long been using the results of his Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MoCA test, as an indicator of his cognitive state and a way to question Biden's. In a 2020 interview with Fox News, Trump recalled the basic structure of the MoCA before adding, "Joe should take that test because something's going on, and I say this with respect" (per NBC News).
Neurologists have questioned Trump's evidence of cognitive excellence
Former President Donald Trump might lean on his Montreal Cognitive Assessment results to prove that his campaign trail flubs were intentional, but neurologists have been unconvinced of his reasoning since he first started touting these scores. "[The MoCA] is not meant to measure IQ or intellectual skill in any way," Dr. Ziad Nasreddine, the assessment's creator, told The Washington Post in July 2020. Nasreddine said the MoCA determines whether a patient has a cognitive impairment such as those associated with Alzheimer's, stroke, or multiple sclerosis.
Nevertheless, Dr. Bruce Aronwald of Morristown, New Jersey, cited the MoCA results in a medical report released by Trump's team on President Joe Biden's birthday. Aronwald, who's listed as Trump's primary care physician, stated that Trump was in excellent physical and mental shape. The report did not list Trump's specific vitals or test results, instead describing them as "within the normal range." Besides the specific details he chooses to share publicly, Trump has remained somewhat secretive about his health.
However, he has no such qualms when it comes to describing the health of others. The former president described Biden as a "guy in the White House who can't put two sentences together and who could not find his way off this stage" at a New Hampshire campaign rally, per Forbes. Trump, for his part, didn't confuse Biden with his predecessor, President Barack Obama that time.