Trump has always been quick to bring up the cognitive test he says he passed. At a rally in Bullhead City, Arizona, on Wednesday, he went through the five words he remembered and told the crowd he is a “frickin’ genius.”
The words, for the record, were hat, hair, logo, white, and black, a sequence that would not challenge most third graders but which Trump presented to the crowd as evidence of something remarkable.
“Nobody can do that. Very few people can do that. They say very few people can do it, but almost none can do them in order like that,” he said. “But I can. You know why? Because I’m a frickin’ genius, that’s why.”,
President Trump on three cognitive tests he took: “I’m a freakin’ genius” https://t.co/oQPXTh4TAy
— CSPAN (@cspan) October 14, 2026
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The test he was describing, however, was not designed to find geniuses.
The Montreal Cognitive Assessment is a standard 10-minute screening tool developed in 1996 to catch early signs of cognitive decline, not exceptional intelligence. Doctors use it to establish whether a patient’s brain is functioning within normal range. Passing it means what it says on the tin, and nothing more.
Jimmy Kimmel addressed this gap on Wednesday night with characteristic efficiency. “You, sir, you aced this test you just made up,” he said. “This is the test you would give your grandfather after he fell off a stepladder.”
The cognitive portion of the evening, as it turned out, was not even the most memorable part.
Trump spotted a friend in the audience, told the crowd the man “looks like s*** actually” and seemed “ready to have a heart attack,” then walked everyone through what would happen if that cardiac event actually occurred. His traveling doctors, he explained, would leave the man where he sat and follow the president instead. “You know what they call them?” Trump asked, answering his own question with visible enjoyment: “Collateral damage.”
Trump: I travel with doctors. If people get sick in the audience, they leave them alone. You know what they call them? Collateral damage. If that person right over there, he looks like shit actually. He looks like he’s ready to have a heart attack. If he did, my doctors would leave him alone.
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 14, 2026
He was in Bullhead City to campaign for Republican Representative Andy Biggs, who is trying to unseat Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs in the Arizona gubernatorial race. Trump called Hobbs “a low-IQ individual” and insisted she could never pass the cognitive screening he had just finished performing for the crowd. Hobbs is currently polling 17 points ahead of Biggs, a number that tends to complicate the low-IQ argument considerably.
This also follows a Tennessee rally earlier in the week where Trump told his own supporters: “I could say the stupidest things and you’d clap.”
Trump: I could say the stupidest things and you’d clap https://t.co/9LLyA30UzI
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 10, 2026
Featured image via X screengrab
