What did David Muir say verbatim when asked about Trump's IQ during the ABC interview?
Executive summary
A comprehensive review of the available ABC interview transcript and related reporting finds no contemporaneous record of David Muir being asked explicitly about President Donald Trump’s IQ, nor any verbatim answer to that specific question in the ABC “first interview” coverage; the primary ABC transcript and other published transcripts do not contain such an exchange [1] [2]. Reporting and fact‑checks compiled for this query likewise do not reproduce a Muir quotation that answers “What is Trump’s IQ?” verbatim, and some online claims about Muir’s on‑air remarks have been linked to misattributed or AI‑generated content rather than the ABC transcript itself [3] [4].
1. What the primary transcripts show: no direct IQ question recorded
The official ABC News transcript of David Muir’s one‑on‑one with President Trump — the document ABC published and which has been circulated as the authoritative record of that interview — contains the full sequence of questions and answers aired, and a close read of that transcript does not surface an explicit question to Trump from Muir asking about his IQ, nor does it include any line in which Muir offers a verbatim assessment of Trump’s intelligence during that session [1]. Independent transcript republications, such as the Roll Call / Factbase reproduction of the interview, tally the sentences and words exchanged and likewise do not list an exchange in which Muir asks “What is your IQ?” or states a literal verdict on the president’s IQ in that interview’s text [2].
2. Secondary sources and context: no corroborating quote found
Contemporary press coverage announcing and excerpting the Muir–Trump interview frames the segment as wide‑ranging and notes Muir’s role as ABC’s lead anchor for the special, but those pieces reproduce highlights that center on policy, personnel, and administration claims rather than an on‑air IQ interrogation, and they do not supply a direct quote from Muir about Trump’s IQ [5] [6]. Biographical and media‑analysis pieces about David Muir document his history moderating candidates and interviewing presidents, but they do not attribute an on‑air IQ remark to him in this ABC interview; the public record of Muir’s questions and interjections remains the transcript itself [4].
3. Misinformation, AI‑generated posts, and the danger of attribution
Fact‑checking work and archival analyses indicate that viral posts sometimes attach fabricated or AI‑generated quotes to prominent anchors like Muir; Snopes has documented instances where sensational attributions to Muir were not supported by the actual broadcast record and instead traced to sites that appear to publish AI‑generated copy [3]. That body of work is relevant here because it demonstrates a plausible pathway for a misattributed “verbatim” line about Trump’s IQ to circulate widely without ever appearing in the ABC transcript or in credible press coverage [3].
4. What cannot be concluded from available sources
The transcripts and reporting reviewed for this query do not provide the verbatim phrase requested, and therefore no authoritative claim can be made that David Muir uttered a specific line about Trump’s IQ during that ABC interview; the absence of evidence in the official transcript and reputable republications means a precise verbatim answer cannot be supplied from the sources at hand [1] [2]. It remains possible that similar questions or remarks occurred in other interviews, off‑air exchanges, promos, or later commentary not captured in the documents searched here, but those instances are not documented in the provided sources [4].
5. Bottom line for the record‑seeker
For anyone seeking a verbatim quote of David Muir answering “What is Trump’s IQ?” in the ABC interview, the only defensible conclusion from the ABC transcript and the supplementary reporting assembled here is that no such verbatim answer appears in the published interview record; claims that a specific Muir line exists should be treated skeptically unless directly supported by the ABC transcript or another primary, timestamped source [1] [2] [3].