9 Moments That Prove Karoline Leavitt's Claim About 'Well-Read' Trump Is Totally False

To prove that one of the president's favorite talking points about his mental superiority isn't the crowning intellectual achievement that he thinks it is, Jimmy Kimmel took the cognitive test Donald Trump is so obsessed with and passed with flying colors. Trump seemingly doesn't understand that the frequency of his cognitive testing is cause for concern, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insists that he's not just a stable genius; he's also the smartest stallion in any stable.

During an April 2026 Turning Point USA event, Leavitt recalled something that Fox News host Dana Perino, who served as White House press secretary during the George W. Bush administration, once said to her: "You always want to be the most well-read person in the room" (via X). But according to Leavitt, this simply isn't possible when her boss is in the vicinity. "Donald Trump always is. That man does not miss a story, let me tell you," she gushed. "He's always reading the papers and watching the TV. He doesn't miss anything anyone says in the whole world."

Leavitt's claim came after Trump confessed that he likes to surround himself with losers, which somewhat diminishes the potency of her sycophantic praise for the president. It was also bound to be met with skepticism, as Trump has become notorious for his aversion to the written word. In response to Leavitt, Trump's former DHS chief of staff, Miles Taylor, wrote on X, "I remember the first piece of advice I got on briefing President Trump in 2017: He doesn't read. Bring pictures. ... And if there has to be words, single page only." There's also so much evidence discrediting Leavitt's boast about Trump's encyclopedic knowledge that it might just fill the shelves of the Library of Congress.

When Donald Trump appeared on "Crossfire" in 1987, Pat Buchanan asked him if he had read the Tom Wolfe bestseller "The Bonfire of the Vanities." Trump replied, "I did not." He was then asked, "What's the best book you've read?" Buchanan preemptively disqualified Trump's own work, "The Art of the Deal" (which was actually ghostwritten by Tony Schwartz), as an acceptable answer, so Trump replied, "I really liked Tom Wolfe's last book." That book was "The Bonfire of the Vanities," which he had just denied reading.

The farce continued when Buchanan asked Trump, "Which book?" to which he replied, "His current book." Buchanan asked Trump again whether the Wolfe book he read was "The Bonfire of the Vanities," and this time he said, "Yes." When Trump pretended to have issues with his earpiece, it became evident he knew that he had been caught fibbing.

It's hard to imagine Trump being much of a fan of the satirical work, as it paints New York elites like himself in a rather unflattering light and ends with the ruin of an egotistical, affluent adulterer who views himself as a "master of the universe." But then again, "The Great Gatsby" didn't have the happiest of endings for its titular wealthy deuteragonist, yet Trump threw a Halloween party inspired by the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic in 2025. Guests at Mar-a-Lago were greeted by a sign reading, "A little party never killed nobody." After pointing out that Trump's celebration of indulgence and excess occurred when many were struggling to afford basic necessities, an incredulous Jon Stewart addressed Trump on "The Daily Show," saying, "Did you even read 'The Great Gatsby'? Spoiler alert: the party killed somebody."

Writers love to compare Donald Trump to Shakespearean characters, but when Trump tried to quote the bard, he totally bungled his rare attempt at eloquence. At a 2024 rally in Pennsylvania, he didn't wow the crowd by delivering the profound line, "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool," from "As You Like It." Instead, he tried to drag Joe Biden by saying, "Did you ever hear Shakespeare? 'He was 'hail and hearty and well met,' but he wasn't a smart person." As noted by the Independent, William Shakespeare never penned these words; it seems that Trump had at some point heard the idiom "hail fellow well met" and decided that it sounded Shakespearean. He then mashed it up with the phrase "hale and hearty."

On "Jimmy Kimmel Live," the titular host mocked Trump's error. "'You ever hear of Shakespeare?' No, honey-baked Hamlet, they never heard of Shakespeare," Jimmy Kimmel quipped. "Nor did Shakespeare write the words 'hale and hearty.' That is a soup."

Apparently, Trump might also find it a bit intimidating when he feels like his opponents are channeling Shakespeare. During a 2016 campaign speech, he said of Ted Cruz (via Roll Call), "I think he's a terrible debater. ... It's good if you want to hear Shakespeare. You know, I don't wanna hear Shakespeare." But if Trump were to study the playwright's works, he might discover some much better insults than his go-to "low-IQ" dig he unleashed at a debate, like this "Henry IV" gem about dishonesty: "There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune, nor no more truth in thee than in a drawn fox." There's also the "Othello" banger, "Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell."

He won 80% of the evangelical vote in the 2024 election, per AP, and it's true that Donald Trump sells Bibles, but has he ever cracked one open? When he was courting Christians ahead of his first term, he was seemingly blindsided by a question about his favorite Bible verse on "With All Due Respect" in 2015. "I don't want to get into specifics," he said. But for a later WHAM 1180 AM interview (via Politico), he chose a Biblical phrase that was pithy and easy to remember: "an eye for an eye."

Then, in 2016, Trump's Liberty University speech was met with laughter when he said, "Two Corinthians, right? Two Corinthians 3:17. That's the whole ballgame." The correct way to say the name of the book of the Bible is Second Corinthians, not Two Corinthians. During a later appearance on CNN, he placed the blame for his biblical blunder on the Family Research Council president. "Tony Perkins wrote that out for me – he actually wrote out 2," Trump complained. "He wrote out the number 2 Corinthians." It was obviously lost on Trump that this is the correct way to write the name of the book.

Fast forward 10 years, and Trump seemed ready to admit that the Bible might not be his favorite book after all. During his National Prayer Breakfast speech (via The White House) in February 2026, he recalled something he once heard Pastor Robert Jeffress say about him on TV: "He may have not ever read the Bible, but he will be a much stronger messenger for us." Trump then gave those who have long speculated that he's biblically illiterate a wink and a nod by quipping, "I didn't want to admit anything."

When Karoline Leavitt was securing her position as one of Donald Trump's favorites by fawning over him during her TPUSA chat with Erika Kirk, she mentioned that the president is an avid consumer of news. However, he often seems to be unaware of what his own administration is doing. In 2019, he whined to White House reporters about the media's reporting on the Worldwide Threat Assessment, in part because it didn't back his personal assessment of Iran. However, he also confessed, "I didn't see the report from the intelligence." He revealed his ignorance again in 2025 when he was questioned about four American servicemen who went missing in Lithuania and were later found dead. "Have you been briefed about the soldiers in Lithuania?" a reporter asked. "No, I haven't," he replied (via X).

Trump also revealed that he doesn't stay informed about the biggest news stories of the day, even when they involve other politicians or members of his administration. Per The Hill, he told the press he was unaware of The Atlantic's 2025 report about Pete Hegseth and other senior officials using Signal to discuss sensitive, potentially classified information. "I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic," he responded. And when a reporter brought up the assassination of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, he said, "I'm not familiar. The who?" per The Guardian.

In 2025, MS Now compiled a list of over half a dozen times Trump responded to questions by saying, "I don't know," or some similar iteration of the phrase. A real doozy came when he uttered those three words on "Meet the Press" in response to Kristen Welker asking him, "Don't you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?"

As Donald Trump slaps his name on everything he can and secures his place in American history, he could stand to brush up on what went on in his country before he started leading it. The Wright brothers' famous first flight wouldn't happen until 1903, but according to Trump, the American military was using planes in the 1700s. They played a crucial role in the historically inaccurate recap of the Revolutionary War that was part of his "Salute to America" speech on Independence Day 2019. "Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports," he said (via X).

Trump could also stand to read some of the many books about the Civil War. "Had Andrew Jackson been a little later you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was really angry that he saw with regard to the Civil War, he said, 'There's no reason for this,'" Trump mused in a 2017 interview with the Washington Examiner. Historians who spoke to CNN about Trump's historical ignorance were appalled, pointing out that Jackson died over 15 years before the Civil War started. And if he had been alive at the time, there's a high likelihood he would have sided with the South as a slaveowner himself.

Trump brought up the Civil War again in 2025 and seemed a bit confused about why and when the Declaration of Independence was penned. "I see the Declaration of Independence, and I say, I wonder if, you know, the Civil War — always seemed to me — maybe that could have been solved without losing 600,000-plus people," he said while addressing the press in the Oval Office (via X).

Donald Trump disregards autocorrect like Lara Trump defies critics of her embarrassing attempts to launch a singing career. She keeps singing off-key; he keeps making ridiculous spelling errors. One glaring example came in December 2016, before he assumed office. "China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters – rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act," he wrote on X, then Twitter. Per Business Insider, he deleted that tweet and replaced it with one that had the correct spelling of "unprecedented." Some other errors that weren't just slips of the fingers include "Prince of Whales" (Prince of Wales), "Marine core" (Marine Corps), and "boarder security" (border security).

Some of Trump's other vocabulary gaffes, which might be less frequent if he read a bit more, include getting words confused. "[Biden] let a lot of super cells in, many from Iran," he told the media in 2025 (via X). But he wasn't suggesting that Iran and Biden can control the weather; he obviously meant "sleeper cells." He similarly said of the Iran war in 2026, "We did a little excursion," when he likely meant to use the military term "incursion" (via X).

Then there is Trump's history of failing to grasp the fact that seeking political asylum has nothing to do with mental asylums. "They're emptying out their mental institutions, insane asylums, their prisons and their jails, and you have many, many thousands of terrorists pouring into our country," he said during a 2023 rally in New Hampshire (via Times News). If you've ever wondered why he sometimes mentions "The Silence of the Lambs" cannibal Hannibal Lecter, it's seemingly because of this confusion. He explained to the crowd, "Hannibal Lecter was from an insane asylum."

In apparent attempts to ingratiate himself with his boss, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has bragged about Donald Trump's health and his geographical knowledge. During CPAC 2026, RFK Jr. shared a fishy Trump tale (via X). "We were sitting across the table from each other, eating McDonald's ... and he got a placemat, and he turned it on its back. And then he took a Sharpie, and drew a perfect map of the Mid East," he recounted. Those who recall something Trump told the press in 2025 had to find this anecdote especially difficult to believe. "You walk over from Iran to Qatar," Trump said. "You can walk it in one second. You go boom-boom, and now you're in Qatar" (via the White House). Perhaps his drawing of the Middle East wasn't so perfect after all — it had to be missing the Persian Gulf if he believes that Qatar and Iran share a border. There are over 100 miles of water between the countries.

After becoming obsessed with making Greenland another star on America's flag, he got the country confused with Iceland during his speech. Trump's flub prompted Karoline Leavitt to excuse it on X with a ridiculous explanation. "His written remarks referred to Greenland as a 'piece of ice' because that's what it is," she wrote. As pointed out on "Morning Joe," Trump also made more than one geographical error during a 2023 campaign rally. In addition to stating that Hungary shares a border with Russia, he got the state he was in, Iowa, mixed up with South Dakota.

No one expects Donald Trump to read medical journals or Popular Mechanics, but as president, he should have a basic understanding of science and technology. It's not a good look when one of your claims could be easily disproven by a kindergarten-level science experiment. While talking about aircraft carriers' electromagnetic elevators during a 2025 campaign stop, Trump mused, per Roll Call, "All I know about magnets is this. Give me a glass of water. Let me drop it on the magnets. That's the end of the magnets."

Let's move on from the mysteries of magnets to the enigma that is electric power. At a 2024 rally, Trump shared his expertise on electric planes. "What happens if the sun isn't shining while you're up in the air?" he said in a video via X, clearly getting electric power confused with solar power, another concept he struggles with. Trump also seems to think that F-35 stealth fighter jets work like Wonder Woman's invisible plane. However, someone else might be to blame for this belief. While speaking to members of the U.S. Coast Guard in 2017, he claimed that an unidentified member of the Air Force told him, "It wins every time because the enemy cannot see it, even if it's right next to it, it can't see it," per The Guardian.

Moving on to medicine, we have Dr. Trump's brilliant method for reducing COVID-19 infections. "If we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any," he said in June 2020, per CNN. There's also Don Quixote Trump's windmill obsession, which Joe Biden has poked fun at; Trump mistakenly believes wind turbines cause cancer.

While there have long been rumors that Donald Trump can't read, it's clear that he's not actually illiterate; despite mocking other politicians for using teleprompters, it's something he does himself. But possessing the ability to read and being well-read are two entirely different things, and the most damning evidence that Trump is not the latter comes from the man himself. In 2016, he told The Washington Post of his reading habits, "I never have. I'm always busy doing a lot. Now I'm more busy, I guess, than ever before." He made similar remarks to Megyn Kelly on Fox News that same year, saying (via The New Yorker), "I read passages, I read areas, I'll read chapters—I don't have the time." In 2024, he even accidentally revealed that he hadn't read Melania Trump's memoir.

What Trump has a lot of time for is playing golf, watching TV, and ranting on social media, activities that seem to take precedence whenever he's enjoying his "executive time." However, he insisted in a 2017 post on X that he doesn't watch four to eight hours of television a day.

Trump's aversion to the written word is apparently so extreme that he doesn't even like the idea of having a traditional presidential library (which is really more like a museum and archive, although there's still plenty of reading to do). Speaking to the media (via X) about his plans for the plot of land in Miami reserved for his presidential library, he went full Biff Tannen. "It's most likely gonna be a hotel with a beautiful building underneath and a 747 Air Force One in the lobby," he said. Perhaps there will be Trump Bibles on the bedside tables of every room?