Will Weisert, The Associated Press
34 minutes ago
Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Detroit, Saturday, June 15, 2024. (Photo by The Associated Press/Carlos Osorio)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump suggested Saturday night that President Joe Biden should “take a cognitive test,” but in his next sentence he confused who would administer the test.
Trump, a former president and Republican front-runner, referred to Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, who served as White House physician during Trump's presidency, as “Ronnie Johnson.” The remarks came as Trump was questioning Biden's mental capacity, as he often does on the campaign trail and on social media.
“He doesn't even know what the word 'inflation' means. I think he should take a cognitive test like I did,” the former president said of Biden during a speech at the Turning Point Action convention in Detroit.
After a few seconds, he continued, “Dr. Lonnie Johnson. Do you all know Congressman Lonnie Johnson from Texas? He's the White House physician, and he said I'm the healthiest president in history. So I immediately took a really good liking to him.”
Jackson was elected to Congress in 2021 and has been one of President Trump's most vocal defenders in Congress.
Trump, who celebrated his 78th birthday on Friday, has made questioning whether Biden, 81, will seek a second term a centerpiece of his campaign. But online critics quickly pounced on Trump's Saturday night gaffe, and the Biden campaign, which has long fended off criticism of the Democratic president's gaffes, posted video of the moment minutes later.
Jackson told reporters at the time that Trump had taken the cognitive testing in 2018 at his own request, which is designed to detect early signs of memory loss and other mild cognitive impairment.
The Montreal Cognitive Assessment test that Trump took included memorizing a list of spoken words, hearing a list of random numbers and repeating them in reverse, saying as many words beginning with the letter F as possible within a minute, accurately drawing a cube and describing specific similarities between two objects, such as a train and a bicycle.
Trump later said he had to memorize and recite correctly a list of words in order: “People. Women. Men. Cameras. Television.”
During the same speech in Detroit, Trump also referenced a video clip circulating widely online among Republicans that shows Biden watching skydivers landing bearing the flags of various countries at the recently concluded Group of Seven summit in Italy.
A cropped version of the video shows Biden walking away from the leaders, turning his back and walking in the opposite direction. He gives a thumbs up, but it's unclear who he's gesturing to. But a fuller angle of the same scene shows him turning toward the skydivers as they land.
Still, Trump played up the video clip, falsely saying Biden had turned around “to look at the trees,” drawing laughter and boos from the crowd.
The Biden campaign issued a statement denying the video was edited in a misleading manner and accusing those who spread it of “altering the video to fabricate lies.”
