Donald Trump Moments That Made Everyone Question His Cognitive Test Results

By Shreya Mali
Donald Trump talking in the Oval Office Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

If someone were to ask Donald Trump to name ten of his greatest achievements, he would most likely include his cognitive test high up on the list. During a 2020 Fox News interview (via CBS News), the Republican politician shared that he had "aced" a cognitive test and his result had floored doctors. Speaking to Fox News later in the month, Trump explained that it was a 35-question test that got progressively more difficult as it went along. At the start of the test, the president was given the words "person, woman, man, camera, TV," and asked to repeat them, which he did successfully. 

He was proud to state that he had accomplished the rare feat of repeating the words in order later on in the exam. Trump also felt it necessary to inform the world of his stellar cognitive test results when he was sharing his reaction to Joe Biden's prostate cancer diagnosis in 2025. However, just moments before his brag, Trump made an awkward slip-up during his Biden health rant that had everyone calling him out, by saying that the Democratic politician had "stage nine" cancer. 

Although the president has had several similarly strange slip-ups over the years, it has never stopped him from bragging about his intelligence. At several points, Trump has boasted about having a high IQ. In 2018, he claimed that an adviser had informed him that "China has total respect for [...] Donald Trump's very, very large brain" (via BBC). However, it's only natural to doubt his claims after reflecting on his bizarre claims and embarrassing moments through the years. 

His memory flubs have created several embarrassing moments

Donald Trump posing for photos Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

In 2019, Donald Trump tried praising Apple CEO Tim Cook for his contributions to the American economy. However, the effect of his compliments was dulled when he referred to him as "Tim Apple." Still, the president could likely find some solace in knowing that the flub took place in a private setting, unlike the time he called rapper Lil Pump "Little Pimp" before inviting him on stage at a 2020 rally. 

Trump apparently can't retain the names of world leaders, either. While speaking at a 2023 campaign event, the he asserted that Viktor Orbán was the formidable leader of Turkey. However, Orbán is the prime minister of Hungary, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is Turkey's president. At one point, Trump seemingly forgot his presidential responsibilities. In 2017, the divisive politician asserted, "I met with the president of the Virgin Islands" (via USA Today). However, to have that meeting, Trump would have to talk to himself because the Virgin Islands are a U.S. territory. 

A White House transcript offered insight into what Trump meant to say, correcting president to "governor." During a 2024 appearance on "Morning Joe," author Ramin Setoodeh stated that Trump had "severe memory issues." He noted that he had a lengthy and in-depth meeting with the president, which Trump had no recollection of only months later. Trump's response to reports of his declining memory was as immature as we expected. His director of communications, Steven Cheung, shared a statement with Newsweek criticizing Setoodeh's character and stating that his cognitive abilities were affected by "Trump Derangement Syndrome."

He has struggled to accomplish basic tasks

Donald Trump drinking water Mark Wilson/Getty Images

In a 2019 tweet, Donald Trump urged NASA to stop using their resources to gain a better understanding of the moon and instead turn their attention toward "Mars (of which the Moon is a part)." Although it's unclear what the tweet was supposed to convey, there's a chance he meant to highlight NASA's statement that their Mars exploration trip would involve research into the moon. In contrast, there was no explanation for why Trump chose to look directly at the eclipsed sun in 2017 until someone shouted, "Don't look!" (via YouTube). 

In addition to apparently struggling to understand basic concepts, Trump also has trouble doing normal things. In April 2025, he carried an umbrella while boarding a plane amid heavy downpour. When reaching the top of the stairs, most people would close the umbrella and quickly step onto the plane. However, Trump struggled with the ordinary task and tried tugging the umbrella through the narrow opening and failed. 

Things got more embarrassing when another person on board pulled the umbrella in with ease by doing the logical thing: turning it to the side. Trump found himself in a similarly mundane struggle in May 2025 while trying to open a box. After inspecting the box from side to side as if it were a Rubik's Cube and being unable to find the opening, Trump handed it to another person, who opened it in a second. In several other clips, we have seen Trump struggle to drink water and subsequently hold glasses of water with both hands. 

His reaction to tragedies has made people question his thinking numerous times

Donald Trump talking Pool/Getty Images

During a daily briefing in April 2020, Donald Trump questioned if the COVID-19 virus could be killed with an "injection" of disinfectant or ultraviolet lights (via NBC). He stated that the disinfectant method could be useful in giving the lungs a deep clean. A month later, he seemingly borrowed a page out of The Literal Doctor from "Arrested Development" and informed reporters that he "tested positively toward negative" for COVID (via YouTube). 

Trump has made equally strange remarks about natural disasters. While talking about the grave danger of Hurricane Florence in 2018 in an X post, the president stated that it was "one of the wettest we've ever seen from the standpoint of water." However, when he visited North Carolina shortly after the hurricane and noticed that it had brought a yacht into a resident's backyard, he told them, "At least you got a nice boat out of the deal" (via The Washington Post). 

Trump was similarly apathetic when he visited a shelter in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in October 2017 and started launching rolls of toilet paper into the crowd as if he were at a concert or a basketball game. Meanwhile, his memory skills came into question in 2018 when he had to write down the most basic questions while he listened to people affected by mass shootings. In a photograph captured from the event, Trump had a card listing five of his talking points, one of which was just "I hear you," per The Guardian. 

Donald Trump's perception skills are questionable

Donald Trump and Kier Starmer smiling Pool/Getty Images

One of Donald Trump's most humiliating moments at the 2025 G7 Summit occurred when he was chatting with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer. As Trump opened a folder to show the cameras that he had signed an important document with his fellow world leader, the pages tumbled to the ground. However, the embarrassment of that moment was trumped when the American president stated that he bagged a trade agreement with the European Union, which the UK officially left in 2020.

Meanwhile, in another awkward Trump moment that was caught on camera in October 2017, he walked away from a podium without signing a bill and only realized his error when his former VP Mike Pence alerted him. Earlier that year, in April 2017, the Republican politician gave a strange speech that made people question if he was aware of his surroundings. During his 2017 Jamboree speech for Boy Scouts, Trump went off on a tangent about William Levitt, a man most of the teens in the audience wouldn't know since he passed away in 1994. 

In the typically rambly speech, Trump made an innuendo about Levitt's NSFW yacht parties and went off into strange political about tangents (despite stating that politics was off-topic for the speech). His perception skills once again came into question when he felt it necessary to inform Fox News that he was having "the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake" with Xi Jinping when he told him that the U.S. had "59 missiles headed to Iraq" (via YouTube). However, he was forced to clarify that he meant Syria upon the interviewer's prompt.

He can't seem to grasp what climate change is

Donald Trump giving a speech Win Mcnamee/Getty Images

Donald Trump apparently doesn't understand how hurricanes work. According to a 2019 Axios report, the president once came up with a bizarre solution for the natural calamity, telling an adviser, "[Hurricanes] start forming off the coast of Africa, as they're moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can't we do that?" (via CNN). Although Trump labeled the report "fake news" in a tweet, people weren't so convinced that was the case because he publicly made some equally bizarre claims in the past. 

In April 2019, he took the stage at a Republican fundraiser and made the completely unsubstantiated and false claim that the noise from windmills causes cancer. Meanwhile, his various claims about climate change have led people to question what he thinks the phenomenon is. For instance, when Piers Morgan asked Trump if he believed climate change was real during their 2018 interview, he said, "There is a cooling and there is a heating," which was initially attributed to global warming and not climate change (via New York Times). 

He stated that the term 'global warming' "wasn't working too well because it was getting too cold all over the place." However, global warming and climate change are separate phenomena, with the latter encompassing the adverse effects of the former. Meanwhile, in a 2024 interview with Elon Musk on X, Trump downplayed the phenomenon, saying, "The ocean is going to rise one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years [...] and you'll have more oceanfront property."

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