(The video above shows Trump having difficulty in negotiating a ramp at the West Point Graduation Ceremony in New York on June 13, 2020.)
In an attempt to defend some of his latest behaviors that indicate faltering physical and mental health, Donald Trump told Sean Hannity on Fox News Thursday night that he was given a cognitive exam at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center recently. During the phone interview, Trump bragged about his score on the test, claiming doctors were “very surprised” that he “aced.”
The answer was in response to a question about Joe Biden and if he had the “mental alertness” to be president — Trump claimed that Biden could not pass an exam with the supposed stellar scores he had. Trump bragged, “I actually took one very recently when, you know, the radical left was saying, ‘Is he all there? Is he all there?’ I proved I was all there, because I aced it.” Trump went on to say, “I aced the test. … He should take the same exact test, a very standard test. I took it at Walter Reed Medical Center in front of doctors and they were very surprised. They said, ‘That’s an unbelievable thing. Rarely does anyone do what you just did.’ ”
I have so many questions. Are these kinds of elaborate cognitive tests given to a sitting president during standard annual physicals, because they are not given to normal citizens in this manner. My grandmother had one of these tests, but it was pretty basic and certainly nothing she could have aced. She also had dementia and her odd behaviors were the basis for giving her the test.
Trump did make an unscheduled trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, in mid-November of 2019 and the visit was kept secret for two days as Trump made an unusual decision to stay out of the public eye. The White House made a point to avoid questions about his health at the time. The White House released a memo after several days, and only after word got out about the visit. Trump’s doctor, Sean Conley, labeled the event as an “interim checkup” that was considered “routine,” and was only kept secret because of “scheduling uncertainties.”
Conley also went on to say, “Despite some speculation, the President has not had any chest pain, nor was he evaluated or treated for any urgent or acute issues.“ Trump’s doctor also confirmed that the visit in question did not involve “any specialized cardiac or neurologic evaluations.” For the record, cognitive tests are synonymous with neurological tests.
Now we have more information: Cognitive exams are not routine in most physicals without symptoms of cognitive decline or concern and Trump’s own doctor has confirmed he had no cognitive testing during that interim evaluation at Walter Reed. This leaves us with another likely option — Trump is just doing what he does best, which is lying about anything and everything for no real, apparent reason.
Which do you think it is? Do you think Trump slipped up last night and mistakenly told Hannity that he was tested for cognitive decline? We know that if he was tested, he was lying about “acing” the test because that’s not really possible. This is something Trump would know had he taken a test, but then again, Trump lies about his scores and performance on everything.
Do you think he is making the entire thing up? It seems like any competent doctor would have certainly tested his mental decline given the things he has done and said in public. It also seems that if the president’s physician suspected that he was in cognitive decline, that he would purposely not want to test him for anything unless he had to so that he did not have to document it or lie about what happened. Trump’s physician is clearly comfortable lying about the results of his annual physical, so would lying about his cognitive tests and test results be much different? Do you think Trump has made another visit to Walter Reed for cognitive testing following the events in June that we just don’t know about?
What do you think? Be sure to leave a comment below.
I have an acquired Traumatic Brain Injury after a road rage incident 22 years ago. It is a closed Brain Injury affecting my executive functions or frontal lobe. I went from making million dollar decisions in a half hour to being last at the table to give my order. I happen to have a high IQ believe me that makes this worse. There are few, if any,cognitive tests I have not taken , even some that were trials. A battery of cognitive tests first time around takes two days. Second time around 1 day and third time around 4-5 hours. I had a very high powered job in Heath Care Mangement, And was working on my second Masters, I also taught at Simmons college and never missed a good party. The Last Paying job I had was packing Groceries, bringing carts in( appreciate it if you bring them to the round up area) and cleaning toilets. All work is honorable. I am telling you this To give you a scope of what goes into the scope of real cognitive testing, which as the physician explained the difference between a neurological examination the organ and network, and cognitive testing or thinking if you will.
It is standard procedure in your Primary Care’s Physican’s office at your annual physical, if you are over 65, to get a brief cognitive evaluation such as orientation to time , place, date, what you had for lunch, how did you get here and maybe a ringer. There is no pass or fail on this there is more like a “Susan Collin’s concern” If you get tge date and time wrong or you say you had baloney and cheese for lunch but your appointment is at 9:30 am. Sorry for the length Of this and you will find grammatical errors and spelling errors. Hurts me more than you.
Per usual DJT or as we Irish pronounce it IDJIT is lying .
Hope this takes any mystery out of his “ aceing” An exam that is graded on skill sets and degrees. Thank you and be Safe wear a Mask
"Acing" a cognitive test is not a thing, and no physician would ever say "no one's ever done this." Getting a perfect score on a cognitive screener (which BTW is not synonymous with neurological testing) is a very low bar, indeed - not as impressive as he imagines it would be. It involves very basic attention, language, visual-spatial, short-term and long-term memory tasks and is meant to screen for potential degenerative processes.
My mom has severe dementia and can no longer complete a sentence before the perseveration takes over and she just repeats a word or sound. Six years ago, concerned about her frequent falls, I took her to a neurologist who spent about two hours testing her. The cognitive function tests included telling her to remember three words (cat, pencil, spoon) and asking her a few minutes later what the words were (she didn’t know). He gave her a circle on a piece of paper and asked her to draw a clock face with the hands pointing to 2:10. I can’t upload a picture here but I tweeted it about two hours ago. It was a mess. No clue what trump “aced;” he probably paid someone to take it.
I am a geriatric neuropsychologist and happy to answer any questions you have about cognitive testing. It is somewhat routine to give a cognitive screening measure to an older adult if there is some concern about cognitive decline. This used to be a Mini Mental Status Exam (MMSE), but now clinicians prefer the MOCA (Montreal Cognitive Assessment test). Trump appears to me to have had a mild left hemisphere stroke. The left hemisphere of the brain controls language (for the most part) and the right side of the body. He is making many more linguistic errors in his speeches -- not being able to pronounce common words, etc. -- and his attempt to drink water at West Point with only his right hand suggests weakness in the hand. If you look at the video he used his left hand to push the glass up to his lips. His arm appeared to be too weak to do this one handed. When he drank water at his Tulsa rally, the movements were not normal. He used his entire shoulder to make his arm move the glass to his mouth and his head also came down to meet the glass. This isn't how normal healthy people drink from a glass.
He also appears to have some type of learning disability and ADHD.
Trump lies so much there is no way for any of us to know how he really performed on this simple brief cognitive screen. And it is highly unlikely that he would consent to a full neuropsychological evaluation as this is a situation where he would not be able to control the outcome. Testing would show how his brain is really working in a variety of domains and he probably knows the results would not be flattering.
He is lying, as usual. My daughter suffered a concussion in her senior year of HS, she had cognitive testing. The cognitive testing is not something you "ace". God help me but I hate that man. No one is going to have him step down, he is the golden goose. The Rs are getting everything they wanted. They don't care if he is losing it.
Any of the scenarios you offer is possible, which is, of course, typical of everything involving something trumputin says or does. Obfuscation IS the strategy for trumputin - it's now baked into his mind so it's an involuntary process. My take: he did take some kind of "test" though I doubt be knows what it was or was for, that it wasn't recently - not at Walter Reed, where it would be very hard to cover that up - that acing a mental functionality test is probably not something anyone can, and that almost everything he said, except, maybe, that he went to Walter Reed, is a lie or an exaggeration.
This man is the president* of the United States. This man is both a humiliation for the country and a threat to it. If I thought at length or depth about what's he's inflicted on us since 2016 or what he's doing to us at any given hour, I would not be able to function at all; he's erasing my entire life as a US citizen because he's erasing its history, my history. We're trapped here in this country because of him; that's a reality that should terrify most of us.
I think he is a puppet being propped up by people who profit from the dummy at the desk. The minute he is out of commission, they lose the golden grifter goose.
The grifters gonna grift. But yeah, the November Walter reed visit was suspect at best. I really wanna know what went on there. That news cycle went poof pretty quickly.
Trump is lying (news flash). I believe he spends the day reading negative comments from “the radical left” - which includes Republican never trumpers. He always comments on something I just read on Twitter, etc.
The anti-trump circle was commenting and making fun of his ramp walking and lifting a glass of water. He makes it worse by not ignoring it (his mental problems prevent him from ignoring criticism)
I have taken one of those tests and like many have said, you don’t ace it. It is very simple.
He said, “I proved I was all there, because I aced it.”
He definitely screwed up. Part of the dementia. His lies are usually some sort of projection...accuse the other person of what he himself does/is. So, of course he's attacking Biden for the problem he has now...mentally unfit in a medical way (besides his other unfitness due to narcissism, etc). Mentioning Walter Reed is the screw up...he should've stayed more generic, as this proves what happened last November was not a normal "check-up" and something happened. He continues to lose control and these slip ups will happen more often.
I think it is standard procedure at his age, that said, his unsteady gate and 2 handed drinking, and a blotch of purple on his face after the unscheduled trip to Walter Reed indicates to me the possibility of a stroke.
I have a (benign) mass in my brain, as well as a lifetime of horrendous migraines (& now cluster migraines.) I’m no neurologist, but I’ve BEEN to many, & lemme tell ya: these tests ARE NOT typical, & there IS no “acing” them. Furthermore, no doc is going to give you an attaboy for being healthy: they’re highly indoctrinated to speak neutrally. (Much like lawyers are trained to tell clients to hope for “the best outcome,” rather than encourage them to rub their hands together in greedy anticipation of a huge jury award.)
As always, even the grains of truth are poisoned in all his blather.
I think that his erratic behavior, and the #tRumpIsUnwell tag have been trending for a while. Someone led him to Walter Reed for cause.
No, you can't "ace" these kinds of tests. Only a demented, malignant narcissist would need to announce to the world how well he did on a dementia test! Considering that he cheated on his SATs, and is likely functionally illiterate, I would assume that he's lying here about how well he did.
20,000 #tRumpLies and counting, just since he's been in office. No sane person would conclude that pathological lying is normal in any public official. We're so gas-lighted, we all just yawn.
We should conclude that:
1. tRump is demented and/or unfit for office for other, cognitive reasons.
2. His cabinet is in collusion to keep him in office as long as possible.
3. No one has the patriotism or the spine to enact the #25thAmendment.
4. We all need to vote, register other voters, and #VoteBlueToEndThisNightmare.
I have an acquired Traumatic Brain Injury after a road rage incident 22 years ago. It is a closed Brain Injury affecting my executive functions or frontal lobe. I went from making million dollar decisions in a half hour to being last at the table to give my order. I happen to have a high IQ believe me that makes this worse. There are few, if any,cognitive tests I have not taken , even some that were trials. A battery of cognitive tests first time around takes two days. Second time around 1 day and third time around 4-5 hours. I had a very high powered job in Heath Care Mangement, And was working on my second Masters, I also taught at Simmons college and never missed a good party. The Last Paying job I had was packing Groceries, bringing carts in( appreciate it if you bring them to the round up area) and cleaning toilets. All work is honorable. I am telling you this To give you a scope of what goes into the scope of real cognitive testing, which as the physician explained the difference between a neurological examination the organ and network, and cognitive testing or thinking if you will.
It is standard procedure in your Primary Care’s Physican’s office at your annual physical, if you are over 65, to get a brief cognitive evaluation such as orientation to time , place, date, what you had for lunch, how did you get here and maybe a ringer. There is no pass or fail on this there is more like a “Susan Collin’s concern” If you get tge date and time wrong or you say you had baloney and cheese for lunch but your appointment is at 9:30 am. Sorry for the length Of this and you will find grammatical errors and spelling errors. Hurts me more than you.
Per usual DJT or as we Irish pronounce it IDJIT is lying .
Hope this takes any mystery out of his “ aceing” An exam that is graded on skill sets and degrees. Thank you and be Safe wear a Mask
"Acing" a cognitive test is not a thing, and no physician would ever say "no one's ever done this." Getting a perfect score on a cognitive screener (which BTW is not synonymous with neurological testing) is a very low bar, indeed - not as impressive as he imagines it would be. It involves very basic attention, language, visual-spatial, short-term and long-term memory tasks and is meant to screen for potential degenerative processes.
My mom has severe dementia and can no longer complete a sentence before the perseveration takes over and she just repeats a word or sound. Six years ago, concerned about her frequent falls, I took her to a neurologist who spent about two hours testing her. The cognitive function tests included telling her to remember three words (cat, pencil, spoon) and asking her a few minutes later what the words were (she didn’t know). He gave her a circle on a piece of paper and asked her to draw a clock face with the hands pointing to 2:10. I can’t upload a picture here but I tweeted it about two hours ago. It was a mess. No clue what trump “aced;” he probably paid someone to take it.
I am a geriatric neuropsychologist and happy to answer any questions you have about cognitive testing. It is somewhat routine to give a cognitive screening measure to an older adult if there is some concern about cognitive decline. This used to be a Mini Mental Status Exam (MMSE), but now clinicians prefer the MOCA (Montreal Cognitive Assessment test). Trump appears to me to have had a mild left hemisphere stroke. The left hemisphere of the brain controls language (for the most part) and the right side of the body. He is making many more linguistic errors in his speeches -- not being able to pronounce common words, etc. -- and his attempt to drink water at West Point with only his right hand suggests weakness in the hand. If you look at the video he used his left hand to push the glass up to his lips. His arm appeared to be too weak to do this one handed. When he drank water at his Tulsa rally, the movements were not normal. He used his entire shoulder to make his arm move the glass to his mouth and his head also came down to meet the glass. This isn't how normal healthy people drink from a glass.
He also appears to have some type of learning disability and ADHD.
Trump lies so much there is no way for any of us to know how he really performed on this simple brief cognitive screen. And it is highly unlikely that he would consent to a full neuropsychological evaluation as this is a situation where he would not be able to control the outcome. Testing would show how his brain is really working in a variety of domains and he probably knows the results would not be flattering.
He is lying, as usual. My daughter suffered a concussion in her senior year of HS, she had cognitive testing. The cognitive testing is not something you "ace". God help me but I hate that man. No one is going to have him step down, he is the golden goose. The Rs are getting everything they wanted. They don't care if he is losing it.
Any of the scenarios you offer is possible, which is, of course, typical of everything involving something trumputin says or does. Obfuscation IS the strategy for trumputin - it's now baked into his mind so it's an involuntary process. My take: he did take some kind of "test" though I doubt be knows what it was or was for, that it wasn't recently - not at Walter Reed, where it would be very hard to cover that up - that acing a mental functionality test is probably not something anyone can, and that almost everything he said, except, maybe, that he went to Walter Reed, is a lie or an exaggeration.
This man is the president* of the United States. This man is both a humiliation for the country and a threat to it. If I thought at length or depth about what's he's inflicted on us since 2016 or what he's doing to us at any given hour, I would not be able to function at all; he's erasing my entire life as a US citizen because he's erasing its history, my history. We're trapped here in this country because of him; that's a reality that should terrify most of us.
I think he is a puppet being propped up by people who profit from the dummy at the desk. The minute he is out of commission, they lose the golden grifter goose.
Of course he's lying ! It's what he does best.
If he even had a test it consisted of something like this ...
How many fingers am I holding up ?
Three.
What year it it ?
2020.
Who is the president of the United States ?
I am.
OMG, Sir !! Nobody has ever aced thid test like you.
We.Are.Shocked.
How can you "cognitively decline" when you were starting at a baseline of zero? #askingforafriend
He's lying, IMHO. I can't imagine a narcissist like Chump submitting to a cognitive test.
My mother's quick screening before her Alzheimer's diagnosis was "Who is the current US President?" and "What year is it?"
No. I don’t. Although, Eric could maybe name the lion.
The grifters gonna grift. But yeah, the November Walter reed visit was suspect at best. I really wanna know what went on there. That news cycle went poof pretty quickly.
Trump is lying (news flash). I believe he spends the day reading negative comments from “the radical left” - which includes Republican never trumpers. He always comments on something I just read on Twitter, etc.
The anti-trump circle was commenting and making fun of his ramp walking and lifting a glass of water. He makes it worse by not ignoring it (his mental problems prevent him from ignoring criticism)
I have taken one of those tests and like many have said, you don’t ace it. It is very simple.
He said, “I proved I was all there, because I aced it.”
That’s bullshit. He has not proven anything.
Where’s the proof ?
He definitely screwed up. Part of the dementia. His lies are usually some sort of projection...accuse the other person of what he himself does/is. So, of course he's attacking Biden for the problem he has now...mentally unfit in a medical way (besides his other unfitness due to narcissism, etc). Mentioning Walter Reed is the screw up...he should've stayed more generic, as this proves what happened last November was not a normal "check-up" and something happened. He continues to lose control and these slip ups will happen more often.
I think it is standard procedure at his age, that said, his unsteady gate and 2 handed drinking, and a blotch of purple on his face after the unscheduled trip to Walter Reed indicates to me the possibility of a stroke.
I have a (benign) mass in my brain, as well as a lifetime of horrendous migraines (& now cluster migraines.) I’m no neurologist, but I’ve BEEN to many, & lemme tell ya: these tests ARE NOT typical, & there IS no “acing” them. Furthermore, no doc is going to give you an attaboy for being healthy: they’re highly indoctrinated to speak neutrally. (Much like lawyers are trained to tell clients to hope for “the best outcome,” rather than encourage them to rub their hands together in greedy anticipation of a huge jury award.)
As always, even the grains of truth are poisoned in all his blather.
He's delusional but possibly tests well. Besides, who is his trusted guardian? To whom do you deliver the bad news of his impairment? His loving wife?
He paid someone to take the test for him.
I think trump is being trump - a liar. He didn’t take any test. IMHO.
I think that his erratic behavior, and the #tRumpIsUnwell tag have been trending for a while. Someone led him to Walter Reed for cause.
No, you can't "ace" these kinds of tests. Only a demented, malignant narcissist would need to announce to the world how well he did on a dementia test! Considering that he cheated on his SATs, and is likely functionally illiterate, I would assume that he's lying here about how well he did.
20,000 #tRumpLies and counting, just since he's been in office. No sane person would conclude that pathological lying is normal in any public official. We're so gas-lighted, we all just yawn.
We should conclude that:
1. tRump is demented and/or unfit for office for other, cognitive reasons.
2. His cabinet is in collusion to keep him in office as long as possible.
3. No one has the patriotism or the spine to enact the #25thAmendment.
4. We all need to vote, register other voters, and #VoteBlueToEndThisNightmare.
I hear Donald is having another test today and he´ll prolly ace that as well. It must be a blessing to have such a cognitive (dissonant) president.
If any1 is interested I have the series "The Powers That Be" ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103515/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2 ) online 24/7. Just get the torrent and away you go.