President Donald Trump called himself a “freaking genius” at an Arizona rally on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, for memorizing five words on a cognitive test.
The rally was in Bullhead City, Ariz., one stop on a packed travel schedule meant to boost Republican candidates before the midterm elections. His genius status, Trump said, was settled after he aced a series of cognitive tests. One of them asked him to repeat five words later in the exam.
“Five words, sir. Hat, hair, logo, white, black. Sir, would you please repeat those words? Hat, hair, logo, white, black. Oh, you got it right,” Trump said, recounting the exchange for the crowd.
The people giving the test were astonished, he said.
“They say very few people can do it, but almost none can do them in order like that. But I can. You know why? Because I’m a freaking genius, that’s why,” he told the crowd.
Hat, Hair, Logo, White, Black
The word list has changed. In a Fox News interview while campaigning in 2020, Trump said he had been asked to repeat “Person, woman, man, camera, TV.”
Before the words came the animals, he told the Arizona crowd: a lion, a bear, a giraffe and a snake, and a question about which one was the lion. Former President Joe Biden could not answer it, Trump claimed. Biden did not take a formal cognitive test during his time in office.
Trump described the exam as standard but tough. Gesturing toward his supporters, he said nobody up there could handle any of the questions he answered. He also mispronounced the word at the center of the boast, calling it a “cognatitive test.”
‘Supposed to Be Easy,’ Says Its Creator
The exam Trump was describing is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), a 30-point screening tool used to detect mild cognitive impairment and early dementia. Dr. Ziad Nasreddine designed it in 1996 as a 10-minute examination of short-term memory, spatial awareness and executive functioning.
Physicians typically give it to look for signs of Alzheimer’s disease, and it is “supposed to be easy,” Nasreddine told MarketWatch. For a person with normal brain function, it is not hard to pass.
Trump has taken the MoCA at least four times. It does not measure intelligence or aptitude, though he has suggested that it does.
Kimmel Brings Up a Stepladder
Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel played the rally clip on Wednesday night’s show, and it drew huge laughs from his studio audience. The test, Kimmel said, was the kind you would “give your grandfather after he fell off a stepladder,” he said on air.
Kimmel said anyone who believes Trump will also believe he plans to send everyone $5,000 if Republicans keep control of Congress.
Scrutiny of the president’s physical health and mental acuity has ramped up, fed by news footage of him seemingly struggling to stay awake during White House meetings and other events. A Reuters/Ipsos poll published in February found 45 percent of respondents would describe Trump as “mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges.” In a 2023 poll, the figure was 54 percent.
Trump is scheduled to appear at rallies in Kansas, Kentucky and Georgia ahead of the November midterms. Fox News’ latest power rankings predicted, for the first time this election cycle, that Democrats will flip the GOP-controlled House in November.
‘Collateral Damage’ at the Arizona Rally
Later in the rally, Trump asked where his doctor was and boasted about the medical staff who travel with him. If people in the audience get sick, he said, the doctors leave them alone. He had a name for such a person: “collateral damage.”
Then he pointed at a man in the crowd, a friend of his, who he said looked ready to have a heart attack. If the man actually had one, Trump said, his doctors would stay with the president, as they do with all presidents, and leave him alone.