President Donald Trump claimed he has the 'highest of IQs' during a TIME Magazine interview published on Thursday, while discussing his late uncle John G. Trump and reviving an earlier, disputed claim that the engineer taught Theodore Kaczynski at MIT.
Trump made the remarks while discussing artificial intelligence and whether he trusted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. After describing Altman and others as 'smart', Trump shifted the conversation towards his own intellectual ability and his uncle's career at MIT.
Donald Trump Makes His Highest IQ Claim
'We're dealing with a very high level of IQ. Very, very high level,' Trump said before bringing up his uncle. When asked whether he meant the relative who went to MIT, Trump turned to his own abilities.
'I have the highest of IQs. I have the highest. I'm fine, and I understand that stuff,' Trump said while discussing artificial intelligence.
Trump claimed his uncle had spent 41 years at MIT and his belief in genetics. 'I understand it much more than I think any president would,' he said, adding that he had an ability to understand 'new frontiers'.
The source did, in fact, work at MIT as a professor of electrical engineering who focused on high-voltage X-ray generators for cancer therapy, electron acceleration and radar research during the Second World War. Trump, however, also made a series of claims about his uncle's career and achievements.
The remarks drew online reaction after independent journalist Aaron Rupar posted the interview segment. One commenter argued that having a smart uncle does not mean a person is smart, while another contrasted the paper trail surrounding Trump's uncle with Trump's comments.
Theodore Kaczynski Claim Comes Under Scrutiny
The TIME interview also brought attention back to Trump's earlier account involving Theodore Kaczynski. At an Energy and Innovation event in July, Trump claimed Kaczynski had been one of John G. Trump's students at MIT.
Trump described his uncle as 'one of the great professors' and claimed he had been the longest-serving professor in MIT's history. He also recounted what he said was a conversation with his uncle about Kaczynski, saying John Trump described the student as 'seriously, good' and recalled him correcting other people.
That account was challenged by Trump's niece, Mary Trump, who discussed the claims on her YouTube channel. She said the alleged conversation could not have happened because John G. Trump died at least 10 years before Kaczynski became infamous.
Mary Trump also disputed Trump's description of her great-uncle's academic credentials. She said he was an electrical engineer, rather than someone with the combination of degrees Trump described, and challenged the claim that he was the longest-serving professor at MIT.
She further said Kaczynski never attended MIT and argued that the conversation Trump described could not have taken place. Those statements represent Mary Trump's account of the disputed claims.
For now, the material supplied for the story contains Trump's account, the online reaction to his TIME interview and Mary Trump's subsequent challenge to his earlier claims. The competing versions remain at the centre of the story.
