Trump said a cognitive test showed his "extreme intelligence"
In May 2026 Trump claimed on Truth Social that a cognitive test showed he had extreme intelligence. This is false. Standard cognitive tests such as the MoCA screen for cognitive impairment and do not measure or certify intelligence.
What we know
On 31 May 2026, Trump posted on Truth Social that a cognitive test had shown he possessed extreme intelligence.
This misunderstands what such tests do. Standard cognitive screening tools, most notably the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), are designed to detect mild cognitive impairment and early signs of conditions such as dementia. They are brief screens, not intelligence tests.
The MoCA and similar instruments do not produce an IQ score and cannot certify someone as extremely intelligent. A perfect score simply means no obvious impairment was detected. PolitiFact and other fact-checkers noted that describing a normal cognitive screening result as proof of exceptional intelligence is a misreading of the test's purpose.
The MoCA was developed in the late 1990s by Dr. Ziad Nasreddine as a rapid office-based screening tool, scored out of 30 points, with a typical cutoff around 26 used to flag patients who may need further neurological evaluation. It tests short-term memory recall, simple visuospatial tasks like drawing a clock, basic language and naming tasks, attention, and orientation to time and place. Because it takes about ten minutes to administer and was designed to be simple enough for use in a routine doctor's visit, it has no ceiling for measuring above-average cognitive ability, meaning a perfect score reflects the absence of detectable impairment rather than any positive measurement of unusually high intelligence.
This is a well known and previously discussed distinction, since Trump referenced passing a MoCA test during his first term as well, and neurologists at the time made the same clarification publicly. Actual intelligence testing uses entirely different, much longer instruments, such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, which are normed against large population samples and designed specifically to measure and rank cognitive ability across a wide range, unlike the MoCA's narrow function as a impairment screen. Conflating a passed screening test with a formal high IQ score is the specific error fact-checkers identified, regardless of whether the underlying screening result itself was accurately reported. Neuropsychologists who administer both types of tests professionally emphasize that a screening tool like the MoCA and a full intelligence battery like the WAIS are built for entirely different clinical purposes, use different scoring scales, and cannot be substituted for one another, which is why a passing score on one provides no information at all about where someone would rank on the other. The recurring nature of this specific claim, since a similar assertion was made and corrected during Trump's first term, suggests the misunderstanding of what the MoCA measures is a durable talking point rather than a one-time error, and it continues to be repeated even after repeated public clarification from neurologists about the test's actual purpose. Medical professionals continue to draw this distinction whenever similar claims resurface publicly.
Common claims
- My cognitive test proved I have extreme intelligence.Not supported
- The MoCA measures how smart you are.Not supported