Donald Trump raised eyebrows on Sunday when he challenged his Republican presidential primary rival Nikki Haley to a mental aptitude test.
Haley has upped her attacks on Trump in recent weeks and on Saturday suggested the former president is “not as sharp” as he “used to be” when he appeared to mix her up with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California) during a campaign speech.
Asked by Fox News’ Martha MacCallum about Haley’s assessment, Trump argued he was “a lot sharper than” his former US ambassador to the United Nations.
The four-times-indicted Trump then suggested, “I would do this. I would sit down right now and take an aptitude test and it would be my result against her result and she’s not gonna win, not gonna even come close to winning.”
“In fact, when I heard the word ‘cognitive,’ you know, I’ve taken two of them now,” Trump continued. “I took one with Doc Ronnie, who’s now a fantastic, you know, White House doctor, and a fantastic congressman from Texas. Admiral. The White House doctor. Jackson. Ronny Jackson. And he’s now a great congressman from Texas. I took one then and I took one recently. I think the result was announced and it was, I aced it twice. I aced it.”
“But I would say that, you know, I’ve actually called for a cognitive test for anybody running for president because I actually think that’s a good idea. It’d be nice to have an intelligent person be president,” Trump added.
Haley herself has called for presidential candidates over the age of 75 to pass cognitive tests.
Trump’s comment predictably went viral on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: