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Trump acing cognitive tests is not the flex he thinks it is [1]

['Walter Einenkel', 'View Profile']

Date: 2026-05-04  

It seems like President Donald Trump may have recently taken one of his favorite cognitive tests. Speaking at a White House event on Monday, he bragged about being the only president to ever have to take a cognitive test and have the tenacity to distinguish between an alligator and a squirrel.

“No president has ever taken one, except me,” Trump said. “I’ve taken three of them, and I’ve aced each one. … Whenever they get a little sassy, like, ‘Does he still have it? Does he still have what it takes?’ I say, ‘All right, I’ll take another one.’ And they are hard.”

How hard are they?

“You know, the first question, it’s very easy, and they always show—the first question is you have a lion, a bear, an alligator, and a, what’s another good, a squirrel. Okay, which is the squirrel?”

“By the time you get to the middle, they’re tough,” he continued.

A few days earlier, speaking at a retirement community in Florida, Trump made a similar boast, attacking Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“He gave the worst interview a month ago—did you see it?—where [Newsom] said he was incompetent, he can’t read, he can’t write, he can’t do it. He said he’s horrible for testing,” Trump told the audience. “We should give him a cognitive test. I took three of them, aced all of them, by the way. You know, I’m the only president, I’m the only president to take a cognitive test because I don’t think [former President Barack] Obama could pass it.”

Trump suggests his own supporters couldn’t pass a cognitive test. I took three of them. I'm the only president to take a cognitive test. I don’t think Obama could pass it. The first question is a lion, a giraffe, a bear, and a shark. A lot of you wouldn’t have been able to answer those questions. — Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) 2026-05-01T20:50:37.879Z

There are reasons to take cognitive tests, and none of those reasons have much to do with measuring intelligence. The fact that Trump keeps emphasizing how many he’s taken says more than he realizes.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/5/4/800033129/videos/trump-cognitive-test-squirrel/

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