Trump has been bragging for years about passing a dementia test: “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV.” Doctors give the test to elderly patients when they suspect cognitive decline. The patient is given 5 words at the beginning, then asked a series of questions. At the end of the test, they are asked if they remember the 5 words they were given at the beginning. If they can repeat the words, that’s great. If the words are repeated in the exact same order, that is excellent.
He first bragged about passing the “difficult” test in an interview with Fox News medical contributor Mark Siegel.
From Politico in 2020:
“It was 30 or 35 questions. The first questions are very easy. The last questions are much more difficult. Like a memory question,” Trump continued. “It’s like, you’ll go, ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ So they say, ‘Could you repeat that?’ So I said, ‘Yeah.’ So it’s, ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ OK, that’s very good. If you get it in order, you get extra points.”
Then, “10 minutes, 15, 20 minutes later” in the cognitive exam, “they say, ‘Remember the first question?’ Not the first, but the tenth question. ‘Give us that again. Can you do that again?’ And you go, ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV,’” Trump recounted.
A neurologist was later interviewed by NBC News who said the test Trump was referring to is called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MoCA test, given to assess the level of cognitive function in patients.
“The Montreal test is not a routine screening test in the same way a colonoscopy or a mammogram are, Honig said.
“There’s no broad consensus that we should be giving MoCA’s to people as part of their wellness examination or general annual physical,” he said.
Symptoms that would prompt giving someone the exam include: Patients repeating themselves, losing car keys frequently, forgetting recent events, and multiple instances of forgetting conversations.
The neurologist also mentioned that “this test is not meant to be an IQ test and is not used as a measure of somebody’s intelligence.”
In researching some of the facts for this piece, I was shocked to see these poll results published in the Political article I quoted above. What a change in the last 4 years!
“In a Fox News poll published Sunday, 47 percent of voters said Biden had the “mental soundness to serve effectively as president,” while 43 percent said the same about Trump. More than half of voters, 51 percent, said Trump was not mentally fit to serve as president, but just 39 percent said Biden was mentally unfit.”
A a recent meeting with CEOs, Trump left them feeling pretty underwhelmed. CNBC host, Andrew Ross Sorkin, said that some of the CEOs walked into the room already leaning towards Trump, but left the room questioning how they felt after witnessing his speech.
From CNBC:
“Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said one CEO who was in the room, according to a person who heard the executive speaking. The CEO also said Trump did not explain how he planned to accomplish any of his policy proposals, that person said.
Several CEOs “said that [Trump] was remarkably meandering, could not keep a straight thought [and] was all over the map,” CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin reported Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
To which I ask those CEOS, have you ever seen a Trump rally? Even on TV? The entire speech at every rally consists of Trump meandering from one topic (or thought) to the next. He repeats the same stories over and over. How many of you recognize some of his “greatest hits?”
- Water pressure and the need to flush toilets many times.
- Windmills cause cancer with their sound.
- Windmills are killing Whales.
- If an electric boat sinks: death by electrocution or shark?
- Any story that begins with, “They come up to me and they say, “Sir…”
- Talking about big, strong men in some context.
If you have any to add to the list, drop ‘em in the comments below. This will be fun!
CEOs in attendance at the Capitol Hill meeting included Apple CEO Tim Cook and Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Yahoo News provided more thoughts Sorkin heard from attendees.
Trump “could not keep a straight thought” and “was all over the map,” some executives told Sorkin. That “may be not surprising,” he said, “but it was interesting to me because these were people who I think might have been predisposed to him and actually walked out of the room less predisposed to him.”
Although Trump, in public comments later Thursday, asserted that inflation “is killing everybody” (the rate has been under 3.5% since 2022), he confounded economic experts by proposing an “all tariff policy” in a meeting with lawmakers that would result in massive price increases for consumers.
The “all tariff policy” they mentioned is Trump’s plan to get rid of all income tax and fund the country with tariffs instead. Economists say it would result in Americans becoming even poorer (except for the top 1%) and that it would cause inflation to skyrocket by 200%.
To those among the 80 CEOs in attendance who were surprised by Trump’s meandering speech: Where the hell have you been?!
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