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- Former President Donald Trump has again been boasting of his success in a 2018 cognitive test.
- Trump highlighted his own performance in a bid to cast doubt on Joe Biden's mental acuity.
- No convincing evidence has emerged to substantiate claims that Biden is in cognitive decline.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Former President Donald again boasted of passing a cognitive test from 2018 as he visited the US-Mexico border Wednesday.
The former president relived his success at the test in a roundtable event with Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott where he brought up the test to criticize President Joe Biden.
Although Trump has touted the three-year-old result as proof of his brilliance, it is in fact a basic screening process for evidence of cognitive problems. The vast majority of people would be expected to easily pass.
At the event, Trump said: "Did I ace it? I aced it. And I'd like to see Biden ace it. He won't ace it."
"He will get the first two. There are 35 questions and the first two or three are pretty easy. They are the animals. This is a lion, a giraffe. When he gets to around 20, he's gonna have a little hard time. I think he's gonna have a hard time with the first few, actually," Trump said.
The test in question lasted 10 minutes, and was given in 2018 by White House physician Dr Ronny Jackson to screen for early signs of dementia and mild cognitive impairment.
Trump later again spoke of his success in the test in an appearance on Fox News host Sean Hannity's show, and had raised the issue Tuesday in an appearance on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton radio show.
Trump frequently brought up the test results last year when campaigning for reelection, in an attempt to paint Biden as mentally lacking.
No substantive evidence has emerged indicating that Biden, America's oldest elected president, is in cognitive decline.
After a recent summit with Biden in Geneva, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the suggestion, remarking that Biden is of "sound mind" and that "the image of President Biden, which is portrayed by our, and even the American press, has nothing to do with reality."
Critics have seized on occasional verbal slips by Biden to make their case.
But in remarks to fact-checking site PolitiFact last year, Kenneth Langa, Cyrus Sturgis Professor of Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, said there was no indication that Biden had dementia.
"Joe Biden clearly does not have dementia," he told the site.
"It is possible that Biden may have more difficulties finding some words and speaking smoothly than when he was younger," Langa said.
But that does not mean he is "senile" or even that he has "mild cognitive impairment," he said.
Biden's physician, Kevin C. O'Connor, released his medical records in 2019 on Biden's request, describing him as a "healthy, vigorous, 77-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency, to include those as chief executive, head of state and commander in chief."
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