Trump’s perfect – President Donald Trump says he scored 30 out of 30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, calling it “high difficulty.” The MoCA is a 30-point screening tool used by healthcare professionals to detect early signs of dementia and mild cognitive impairment, not t
President Donald Trump says he got a “perfect” score on a cognitive screening test he recently took — and he framed it as something unlike any other U.S. president has done.
In a post on Truth Social. Trump wrote that “none of whom have ever taken an approved. high difficulty. Cognitive Test. ” adding. “I scored a perfect 30 out of 30. considered ‘extreme intelligence.’” He also said it was his “fourth such test. ” with “all PERFECT or 120 correct answers out of 120 questions asked. ” and that “it is very rare that anyone gets a Perfect Score. especially when achieved four times in a row.”.
Trump went further, writing: “All people running for President and Vice President should be forced to take high difficulty Cognitive Tests.”
The test Trump is referencing is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MoCA — a 30-point screening tool used by healthcare professionals and researchers to detect early signs of dementia and mild cognitive impairment.
With permission from Montreal Cognitive Assessment, Newsweek examined a handful of the kinds of questions the president may have faced and asked a simple prompt for readers: if you took this test, how would you score?
MoCA questions include a short visuospatial task that starts with a sequence of numbers and letters: 1, A, 2, followed by 3, B, 4, C, 4?—the set-up continues so that the pattern runs as: 1, A, 2, then should continue on to B, 3, C, 4, D, 5, E.
The test also asks people to copy a basic stick image of a bed. Another task challenges those completing it to draw a clock displaying the time as “five minutes past 10.” The correct response is a clock face with the hour hand at 10 and the minute hand at 5.
Then come language-and-visual identification items: pictures of three different animals are shown, and the tester must name all three. In the MoCA materials referenced here, the animals pictured are a horse, a tiger and a duck.
The MoCA is intended for professional use only by healthcare professionals or researchers. For general public use, MoCA XpressO is available online as a quick screening option.
After Trump’s comments about the score, Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment. The response pointed back to Trump’s Truth Social post discussing his test results.
A memo recently released by the White House from Dr. Sean Barbabella. Trump’s physician. said the president “remains in excellent health. demonstrating strong cardiac. pulmonary. neurological and overall physical function.” The memo also stated that Barbabella noted that “a comprehensive neurological examination demonstrated normal mental status.”.
How experts read a “perfect” score
For many people, the questions described in the MoCA materials can seem manageable — and that’s precisely the point, said Dr. Leslie Dobson, a forensic psychologist with specialist training in neuropsychological assessment.
“These tests set a floor, not a ceiling,” Dobson told Newsweek. “They are not measures of intelligence, wisdom, fitness for high-pressure decision-making, or executive function under stress. Any cognitively intact adult without moderate to severe neurological impairment should score at or near the maximum without breaking a sweat.”.
Dobson emphasized that the MoCA’s maximum score is 30. She said a score of 26 or above is considered normal, while scores below 26 suggest possible impairment that warrants further investigation. “This is not a test one ‘aces,’ one simply passes or raises a clinical flag,” she said.
Dobson also expressed concern about the repeated nature of Trump’s testing — and about the way the results have been presented publicly.
“Cognitively healthy individuals in routine life are not typically administered repeated cognitive screenings,” she said. “These tools are used when there is a clinical reason, a concern raised by the patient, a family member, or an observing clinician.”
“The repeated. publicly emphasized administration of screening tests. combined with the apparent need to announce the results. is not standard neurological practice. ” Dobson added. “It is, however, very good public relations, provided one’s audience is unfamiliar with what the tests actually measure.”.
A second psychologist offered a similar framing, pushing back on the idea that a high MoCA score proves exceptional mental ability.
Tracy Collins, a licensed clinical psychologist, echoed Dobson’s view that the MoCA is not an intelligence test.
“They are not intelligence tests,” Collins told Newsweek. “They are designed to detect signs of cognitive decline, things like memory loss, difficulty with spatial reasoning, problems with attention or language. They check whether the basic machinery is working, not how smart or capable someone is.”
Collins said the MoCA is calibrated so that a normal result is expected, not exceptional. “A healthy person with no cognitive impairment should score at or near the top,” she said. “The test is calibrated so that a normal result is expected, not exceptional. There is nothing to ‘ace’ there really.”
But Collins also pointed out that repeated testing can be standard for certain patients. In her experience, she said, repeated testing is “standard practice for any patient over a certain age, particularly those in high-stress or high-responsibility roles.”
“Repeated testing over time allows clinicians to track whether scores remain stable or show a pattern of change,” Collins said. “A single score tells you very little. The trend over multiple administrations is what matters diagnostically.”
At the same time, Collins said the test has limitations that can be easy to miss.
“They are brief. usually 10 to 15 minutes. and they catch moderate to significant impairment more reliably than subtle early-stage changes. ” she said. “A perfect score does not rule out every possible concern. and a slightly imperfect score does not necessarily indicate a serious problem. They are a starting point, not a final answer.”.
Where the test leaves off
Trump’s claim — a “perfect” 30 out of 30 — hinges on a screening tool that is meant to flag early cognitive decline. not to score intelligence. The questions described in the MoCA materials involve short. concrete tasks: pattern continuation. copying a simple drawing. drawing a clock at “five minutes past 10. ” and naming animals pictured in an image set.
And while Trump’s physician memo says a neurological exam showed normal mental status and points to strong overall physical functioning. the experts’ common thread is sharper: a MoCA result is best understood as a clinical starting point. shaped by what the test can and can’t detect — and by how clinicians interpret results over time.
Trump MoCA cognitive test Montreal Cognitive Assessment cognitive screening dementia mild cognitive impairment Truth Social Sean Barbabella neurological exam