Doctor Shatters Trump’s Boasts About Passing Memory Test

Dr. Kavita Patel explained that Trump is boasting about passing a simple short term memory test that is the same as a blood pressure screening.

Trump said during a recent Fox News interview, “Like a memory question. It’s like you’ll go person, woman, man, camera, TV. Ten minutes, 15 minutes later they’ll say remember the first question? Not the first, but the tenth. Give us that again. Person, woman, man, camera, TV. They say, that’s amazing. How did you do that? I do it because I have like a good memory. Because I’m cognitively there.”

Dr. Patel explained:

And just very simply, this is a test of memory recall. It’s something that I commonly do. It’s three objects. You can do more, but it’s three objects and usually, I’ll say things like pen, watch, paper and then it’s really to test for that short-term memory recall.

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Candidly, we’re looking for much deeper issues such as dementia or, again, something that could be prohibiting a person from having the ability to remember something from ten minutes ago. So this is not meant to be some sort of detailed neurocognitive think of it like a screening. Almost like a blood pressure test. It’s something to give you a signal and then you look for more.

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The bar is really low if this simple test is what Trump thinks proves that he is all there. Trump brought this on himself by trying to raise questions about Biden’s cognitive ability to be president. The questions about mental impairment blew back on Trump and have resulted in him spending weeks trying to prove that he is not in mental decline.

Trump trapped himself, which is why he is bragging about cognitive screenings that don’t prove what he thinks they prove.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association