Former President Donald Trump suggested during a speech at a convention in Detroit that President Joe Biden should take a cognitive test. Trump referenced Texas Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician, but mistakenly called him 'Ronny Johnson.' Jackson, who is now a congressman, had previously stated that Trump was the healthiest president in history.
Trump, who has often questioned Biden's mental acuity, mentioned that he had taken a cognitive test in 2018 at his own request. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment that Trump underwent includes various tasks such as remembering words, repeating numbers backward, and describing similarities between objects.
During the same speech, Trump also mentioned a video clip showing Biden at the Group of Seven summit in Italy. In the video, Biden is seen watching skydivers land with flags from different nations. A cropped version of the video circulated online, showing Biden turning away, but a fuller angle reveals that he was actually facing a skydiver who had landed.
The Biden campaign quickly responded to Trump's remarks, dismissing the video clip as misleadingly cropped and accusing those sharing it of tampering with the footage. This exchange is part of an ongoing narrative in which Trump questions Biden's fitness for a second term, while Biden's team defends against criticisms of the president's verbal missteps.
Despite the back-and-forth between the two camps, the focus remains on the political discourse surrounding the mental acuity of the current president and the former president's attempts to highlight perceived shortcomings.