President Donald Trump’s habit of bragging about acing multiple cognitive tests may have accidentally confirmed everyone’s worst fears about the state of his health.
Appearing on MS NOW, Dr. Vin Gupta discussed the president’s latest boast, which saw the 79-year-old gloat yet again about scoring “100%” on a third cognitive examination in a Friday Truth Social post.
“The White House Doctors have just reported that I am in ‘PERFECT HEALTH,’ and that I ‘ACED’ (Meaning, was correct on 100% of the questions asked!), for the third straight time, my Cognitive Examination, something which no other President, or previous Vice President, was willing to take,” the president wrote.
“This is not the flex he thinks it is,” Gupta, medical analyst for NBC News and former Chief Medical Officer at Amazon Pharmacy, said. “You don’t do this every other day and use that as evidence that you’re cognitively there.”
“Those that tend to do Montreal [Cognitive Assessment Tool, or MOCA] tests with that level of frequency, usually we’re worried about the presence of early-stage dementia or cognitive impairment, so he might be ruling himself in to something that he doesn’t want to rule himself into.”
The president has faced increasing speculation surrounding his cognitive health during his second term, with multiple medical experts and Trump’s own niece suggesting that his decline is readily apparent.
Psychologist Dr. John Gartner has previously told The Daily Beast Podcast that undertaking the same cognitive assessment multiple times suggests that his doctors are not assessing dementia, but monitoring it.
“You could maybe justify giving someone the MoCA once, just on their age, just as part of a physical. If you’re giving it to him three times, that means you’re not assessing dementia. That means you’re monitoring dementia,” Gartner argued.
Gartner has previously pointed to the president’s increasingly erratic behavior as evidence of his cognitive decline.
“When people develop dementia, they become the worst versions of themselves,” he told the Daily Beast’s Joanna Coles in November.
“Whatever personality issues or problems [people with dementia] have begin to deteriorate and they become even more crude, disorganized, aggressive, confused versions of that personality disorder,” Gartner added.
Caginess from the White House has only exacerbated speculation about the president’s health, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt repeatedly declining to provide journalists or the American public with details of the president’s medical assessments.
After the president himself blurted out in October that he had undergone an MRI during a physical examination, the White House initially declined to provide details as to why. Eventually, in December, they claimed that it was a “preventative” measure due to his age—a claim medical experts immediately began to question.
“There really is no preventative cardiac MRI,” Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN in December. “This is not a standard test for an 80-year-old man to undergo advanced imaging.”
Trump has also regularly been seen with bruises on his hands—something the White House has blamed on frequent handshakes plus a daily aspirin regimen—and swollen ankles, likely the result of his chronic venous insufficiency diagnosis, both of which have added to concerns about his fitness for office, as has his seeming tendency to take naps during official meetings.
In January 2025, Trump—who regularly questioned his predecessor Joe Biden’s fitness for office—became the oldest president to take the oath of office.
In December, he posted a lengthy rant to Truth Social in which he argued that it was “seditious, perhaps even treasonous” to discuss his health.
“After all of the work I have done with Medical Exams, Cognitive Exams, and everything else, I actually believe it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean ‘THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,’” he wrote in response to a wave of fresh concern on his seemingly declining health.
The post Top Doctor Sounds Alarm as Trump Seems to Confirm Dementia Fears appeared first on The Daily Beast.
