President Donald Trump wants to hand out IQ tests to Democratic representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jasmine Crockett to “see who comes out best.”
The self-proclaimed “very stable genius” has become fixated on the intelligence of the two congresswomen, who are among his youngest and most vocal critics on Capitol Hill.
“AOC, look, I think she’s very nice. But she’s very low-IQ, and we really don’t need low-IQ,” Trump, 79, told reporters at the White House Tuesday. “Between her and Crockett, we’re going to give them both an IQ test to see who comes out best.”
The president’s comments on Ocasio-Cortez, 35, and Crockett, 44—who represent New York and Texas respectively—came ahead of his trip to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for an energy and artificial intelligence summit.
Ever the humble statesman, Trump went on to boast: “Now, I took my test. I took a real test at Walter Reed Medical Center, and I aced it. I got every one of all those questions right. Now it’s time for them to take a test.”
He was likely referring to the cognitive test he took in April as part of his first physical of his second term.
At the time, he bragged, “I got the highest mark, and one of the doctors said, ‘Sir, I’ve never seen anybody get that kind of—that was the highest mark.’”
The test, called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), is used to detect early signs of dementia. It includes basic tasks such as drawing a clock and repeating a list of words, and is does not measure intelligence.
Trump has claimed that his IQ is “one of the highest” but he has never released IQ test results.
And despite boasting that he was a stellar student, he has worked to keep his academic records sealed, according to his former fixer Michael Cohen.
“I’m talking about a man who declares himself brilliant but directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores,” Cohen told a House panel in 2019.
He submitted copies of letters he had sent on Trump’s behalf to Fordham University warning the school that it could face legal trouble if it shared his grades. Trump attended Fordham before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1968.
In addition, Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, alleged that he had someone take the SAT on his behalf when he was a high-school student in Queens—a claim their niece, Mary Trump, published in her book 2020 book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.
Despite being secretive about his own grades and intelligence tests, Trump has made a habit of wielding “low-IQ” as a go-to insult against his opponents, saying of Crockett in March: “She’s a lowlife, and she’s a very low-IQ person.”
Crockett later fired back, saying she would “absolutely” take an IQ test “head-to-head” against the president.
