When were Trump’s three cognitive tests?
The report on President Trump’s health published by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday was not particularly reassuring. The president has shown increasing signs of aging, the Journal’s reporters noted — unsurprising given that he’s the oldest person ever to have been inaugurated to the position. He continues to eat poorly and to adhere primarily to his own medical advice, a dubious approach for someone coming up on his 80th birthday.
But, of course, Trump spun the report on Friday morning as a complete exoneration of any concerns. On the social media platform he owns he wrote that his doctors had asserted that he is in “perfect health” — an assertion made in the article not by his doctors but by Trump himself.
Trump also asserted that his mental acuity has been tested three times, and that he “ACED” the questions the cognitive exam posed. Rather than providing reassurance, though, one might wonder: Why is Trump’s mental fitness being tested so often?
The answer to that question will probably be unsatisfying for both Trump supporters and Trump critics. He isn’t being tested for cognitive impairment particularly frequently; he’s just talking about old tests a lot.
Here is a timeline of the three reported tests.
January 12, 2018
The first exam was conducted during his first term in office, back when his personal physician was still Dr. Ronny Jackson. During a press conference, Jackson informed reporters that Trump had been given an annual physical and, while delineating the elements of the examination, noted that Trump’s cognition had been screened.
“A cognitive screening exam using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment was normal, with a score of 30 over 30.”
This is not atypical, given that Trump was already in his 70s at the time. What was unusual was that Trump seized on this test as being evidence of his cognitive superiority — which, as I’ve written, is a bit like bragging about your superhuman physicality because your covid test was negative.
Sept. 13, 2023
The next cognitive exam was conducted during the Biden administration, after Trump had already declared his intention to seek reelection to the presidency.
Again, this is a normal examination for a person who is 77 years old. But it also allowed Trump to elevate his successful navigation of the screening process to suggest that Joe Biden ought to be public with his own results.
April 11, 2025
Trump’s most recent cognitive test was not, as his post on Friday might suggest, conducted recently. Instead, it was given to him after he’d returned to the White House, during a physical last April.
A report from Trump’s current physician detailed the test in sterile language.
Trump had a follow-up exam in October of last year, during which he received seasonal vaccines and in preparation for international travel. A report from the doctor after that examination does not suggest that it included a cognitive screening.
In the abstract, that makes sense. Such tests are currently recommended annually in the absence of any signs of cognitive impairment.
Whether insisting that a test passed nine months prior constitutes a recent measure of cognitive fitness should be considered a sign of impairment would, I suppose, be up to the doctor to judge.
Photo: Trump grins at Mar-a-Lago in December. (White House/Flickr)