Donald Trump has spent years boasting about his performance on cognitive tests, repeatedly treating the ability to remember a handful of words or identify an animal as proof of his exceptional intelligence.
But Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed had a rather different interpretation during a campaign rally in Grand Rapids — and he delivered it with a punchline that left little doubt about what he thinks of the president’s favorite brag.
Speaking at a rally alongside Senator Bernie Sanders over the weekend, El-Sayed drew on his medical education and clinical training to mock Trump’s repeated references to the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, commonly known as the MoCA.
“In my Neurology unit, I would have to give that MoCA exam, that cognitive test he’s so proud of,” El-Sayed told the audience.
He then argued that the test is generally used when clinicians have concerns about a patient’s cognitive functioning.
“The only people you give that test to are people who you worry may have cognitive deficits,” he said. “By definition, if you’re taking one of those tests, something is wrong!”
That line drew on a real distinction between cognitive screening and intelligence testing, although El-Sayed overstated the medical implication. A MoCA screening can be administered for several reasons, and taking one does not establish that a person has cognitive impairment.
But El-Sayed wasn’t delivering a medical lecture. He was building toward a joke about Trump’s habit of celebrating his test results.
He imagined the doctor who administered the assessment telling Trump that the goal was simply to find out how smart he was.
“And he’s like, me too,” El-Sayed joked.
Then came the punchline.
“He’s like, I remembered the rhinoceros. You’re like, habbibi, everybody remembers the rhinoceros!”
The reference was to the animal-identification portion of the MoCA, which includes a drawing of a rhinoceros among other images.
Trump has repeatedly boasted about his ability to perform well on cognitive assessments, sometimes using his results to argue that his mental abilities are superior to those of political rivals.
But the MoCA is not designed to measure exceptional intelligence. It is a screening instrument that helps clinicians assess cognitive functions such as memory, attention, language and orientation.
El-Sayed continued by mocking Trump’s repeated references to having taken cognitive tests more than once.
“The funny thing about it is, you know, he’s taken it multiple times,” he said.
“So he’s not even bragging about the first time he took it.”
Then El-Sayed delivered his blunt assessment of the president’s behavior.
“So with Donald Trump, you can’t blame him for this, he’s just dumb!”
The remark was a political insult, not a medical diagnosis.
And El-Sayed’s criticism wasn’t limited to Trump.
He turned next to Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate candidate he is challenging in Michigan, accusing him of indulging Trump’s behavior rather than challenging the president.
“But for Mike Rogers, can you imagine how small of a human being you have to be to know that he has real deficits and to just nod your head approvingly at the most ridiculous shit that the man proposes?”
El-Sayed’s accusation that Trump has cognitive deficits was not supported by clinical evidence presented at the rally. His point was a political one: He believes Rogers is too willing to defend or excuse the president.
That attack comes as the Michigan Senate race has grown increasingly confrontational.
Rogers has criticized El-Sayed over his past statements about Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood, while El-Sayed and his Democratic allies have accused Republicans of using inflammatory attacks to distract from economic and policy issues.
The two candidates have also become entangled in a broader fight involving Trump and former President Barack Obama, who campaigned for El-Sayed in Detroit on Saturday.
For El-Sayed, the cognitive-test routine offered a way to make two arguments at once: that Trump’s boasts deserve skepticism, and that Rogers should be held accountable for the political positions he chooses to defend.
The medical distinction is straightforward. Performing well on a cognitive screening test is reassuring within the limits of that assessment, but it is not evidence of extraordinary intelligence.
And undergoing such a test does not, by itself, establish a cognitive disorder.
El-Sayed used that distinction as the foundation for a much sharper political message.
Trump may keep celebrating his ability to remember the rhinoceros.
But El-Sayed wants Michigan voters to ask why their Republican Senate candidate keeps applauding the president.
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Great piece and hoping other news outlets report on brilliant takedown of Cheeto and deficient Rogers