Trump’s latest boast about his ‘very hard’ cognitive test instantly became a bleakly funny meme

Of all the many things to be concerned about right now, the mental acuity of Donald Trump is certainly one of them. It’s also one of the things he’s currently talking about incessantly, presumably to avoid discussing the coronavirus pandemic that’s claimed more than 145,000 lives in the U.S. and counting.

Trump’s rambling, non-linear speaking style makes George W. “Is Our Children Learning?” Bush look like the greatest orator of the modern era in comparison. The contrast between his more natural, coherent speech just a few years ago and his tendency to slur words, as well as his habit of sharing thought bubbles like “Could we inject bleach into the body to kill the coronavirus?” right in front of TV cameras and journalists, have long had people speculating that the 74-year-old is experiencing some cognitive decline. 

To combat this narrative, Trump revealed that in 2018 he took the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) — a simple test designed to help doctors assess cognitive function, typically administered to adults whose loved ones are concerned about possible dementia, Alzheimer’s, or other conditions. It involves simple tasks like drawing a clock, identifying pictures of common animals, and repeating five simple, unrelated words back to the administering doctor and then remembering them later in the test. 

Trump has been bragging repeatedly that he “aced” it, which is a bit like boasting that you made yourself a PB&J without cutting off your thumb: Technically, it’s a good thing, but it’s also a very, very low bar to clear.

Fox News’ Chris Wallace on Sunday asked the president about the test, noting that it’s not supposed to be hard at all, and Trump insisted that it was. As the fallout from that surreal interview continued into Wednesday, Trump went back on Fox to keep repeating the saddest flex of all time.

However, he couldn’t seem to actually remember the actual five words on the test. Instead, he went full Brick Tamland and just picked five nouns that were in his immediate field of vision, three of which were variations on the same noun.

“The last questions are much more difficult, like a memory question,” he told Fox News medical contributor Marc Siegel. “It’s like, you go ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ So they say, ‘Could you repeat that?’ ‘So I said, ‘Yeah. So it’s person, woman, man, camera, TV.'”

“And then, 10 minutes, 15 minutes later: ‘Remember the first question, not the first but the tenth question? Give us that again,'” Trump said. “And you go ‘person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ If you get it in order, you get extra points! They said ‘Nobody gets it in order’ … They say ‘That’s amazing. How did you do that?’ I do it because I have, like, a good memory.”

(Just to be clear, there are no “extra points” in the MoCA, only points deducted for failure — and the last five questions are about what date, day, month and year it is, and what city the patient is in at that exact moment.)

Naturally, as the video of the Siegel interview began to circulate, so did the memes, jokes, and copypastas. (And don’t worry, Trump lipsync queen Sarah Cooper is already all over it.)

Person, woman, man, camera, TV.

Person, woman, man, camera, TV.

🎵 Person, woman, man, camera, TV 🎶

Person! Woman! Man! Camera! TV!

Person woman, man camera TV — person, woman man camera TV person, man camera TV.