Former President Donald Trump said he aced a cognitive test that his doctor gave him a couple months ago, hoping to quell questions about his mental fitness that arose after a gaffe during a campaign speech. Trump said he feels his mind is stronger now than it was 25 years ago.
“I’ll let you know when I go bad,” Trump said. “I really think I’ll be able to tell you, because some day we go bad. But, you know, I’ve had and they always say like, like Haley, she talks about, ‘Yeah, we don’t need an 80-year-old.’ Well, I don’t mind being 80, but I’m 77. That’s a big difference.”
The events began Friday night, Jan. 19, when Trump mixed up former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and his presidential rival Nikki Haley, R-S.C., while talking about the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
“By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6,” Trump said in New Hampshire. “Like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard. So whatever they want, they turned it down.”
Trump’s error is similar to those he has frequently criticized President Biden for.
“He’s the most incompetent president we have ever had,” Trump said during a November campaign event after mocking times when Biden has been confused as to where he is supposed to enter or exit a stage.
Haley has made age a center point of her campaign from the very beginning, so she jumped on the opportunity to bring it up again. Haley has pitched herself as a younger alternative to both Trump and Biden.
Trump would be 78 at the start of a second term and Biden is 81.
“It’s the same reason why I said we need to have mental competency tests in Congress,”Haley said in New Hampshire Sunday. “I don’t care if you do it for every member of Congress. But the issue is these are people making decisions on our national security. These are people making decisions on the future of our economy. We all know seniors who can run circles around us. This is the most pressured job in the country. You can’t make a mistake on this.”
Haley needs all the help she can get for the upcoming New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries. While she is South Carolina’s former governor, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and current Gov. Henry McMaster, R, both endorsed Trump for the Republican nomination.
