‘Daily Show’ Host Compares Trump to a ‘Special Ed’ Student
The president has flaunted his multiple cognitive tests, but “The Daily Show” had a different take.
The Daily Show’s Desi Lydic tore into Donald Trump for bragging about taking multiple cognitive tests, calling the president’s boasts “kind of a weird flex.”
On Tuesday night, Lydic examined the 79-year-old president’s constant reminders that he has taken these cognitive tests. At a press conference on Friday, Trump said he “aced each one” and insisted that “anybody running for president or vice president should take a cognitive test.”
“No president has ever taken one,” he said. “So I’ve taken three.”
Lydic called out the president’s “weird flex,” comparing Trump to a special education student.
“It’s like bragging about being the only kid in school who gets a special helper,” she said.
President Donald Trump bragged about taking a cognitive test during a speech at The Villages on May 01, 2026, where he shared an example of being able to identify the correct animal out of "a lion, a giraffe, a bear, and a shark."
Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images
The Daily Show then played footage of the president listing various animals as he explained the test’s first question. On Friday’s event during National Small Business Week, he told reporters, “You have a lion, a bear, an alligator, and a, what’s another good..? A squirrel. ‘Which is the squirrel?’” In another instance, at a wholly different press conference, he tells the crowd, “You have a lion, a giraffe, a whale, and a shark. And they’ll say, ‘Which one’s the lion?’”
Lydic responded to these clips, saying, “At this point, I’m not even sure there was even a test. I feel like there’s I feel like there’s a good chance the president was just watching Zootopia.”
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“You know what? Maybe small business owners aren’t the best audience for Donald Trump’s animal facts. Is there an audience that’s closer to his intellectual level?”
President Donald Trump speaks to a youth during an event to sign a memorandum in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 5, 2026.
REUTERS/Evan Vucci
The Daily Show panned to a clip of Trump hosting a group of children at the White House for an event that promoted the importance of physical fitness.
“Ah, there we go. That’s more your speed! Now you can talk about animals until your heart’s content,” posited Lydic. Instead, however, Trump was captured speaking about nuclear weapons, open borders, transgender “mutilization,” and the Dow Jones.
Lydic mocked the president’s choosing to chat about various inappropriate subjects, imitating a child picking up the phone: “Hi, Mom. Can you pick me up from the White House? The president is trauma-dumping on me again.”
The comedian posited that Trump may need to recalibrate his topics of choice depending on his audience.
“So when Trump’s talking to a room full of adults, he sounds like a child,” she said. “When he’s talking to a room full of children, he sounds like Pennywise.”
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