How did the media and politicians react to Trump's IQ remark at the time?
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Executive summary
When President Trump boasted that he had taken and aced an “IQ test” at Walter Reed and called members of Congress “low IQ,” mainstream outlets and experts pushed back that the exam he described was the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), a dementia screening not designed to measure intelligence [1] [2] [3]. Politicians and media figures reacted along partisan lines: Democrats and critics used the comments to mock or fundraise off him, while conservative-aligned outlets and allies amplified his boast; independent experts emphasized the MoCA’s limits and cautioned against equating it with IQ [4] [5] [6].
1. How the press framed the episode: test confusion vs. political attack
Coverage clustered around two claims: Trump said he’d taken an “IQ test” and used it to taunt Democratic members of Congress, and medical experts and news outlets countered that the test was almost certainly the MoCA dementia screen and not an IQ measure [3] [1]. Outlets such as People and NDTV reported the factual chain — Trump’s remarks on Air Force One and Walter Reed, his bragging about scoring highly — and quoted the MoCA creator and neurologists explaining the screen “should not be used to measure intelligence” [1] [2]. Axios and MedPage Today emphasized the test’s purpose: detecting cognitive impairment rather than assigning IQ, drawing a clear technical distinction [3] [6].
2. Politicians turned the moment into partisan theater
Democratic figures and progressive media seized the remark as both a real-world attack and a fundraising opportunity. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her allies used the jab and Trump’s challenge to her IQ for campaign appeals, per reporting that linked the incident directly to AOC’s fundraising responses [4]. Meanwhile, critics across outlets mocked the specific, odd claims Trump made in other contexts — for instance, the “185 IQ to turn on a lawnmower” line that prompted memes from figures like California Gov. Gavin Newsom [5] [7]. Conservative allies and Trump-aligned platforms, according to the reporting available, focused on amplifying the president’s self-reported scores and his broader attacks on political foes [8] [9].
3. Medical experts: MoCA is a screening, not an IQ certificate
Neurologists and the MoCA’s creator were cited repeatedly to correct the technical mislabeling: the MoCA was developed to detect mild cognitive impairment and assess memory, attention and visuospatial skills; “there are no studies showing that this test is correlated to IQ tests,” the creator said, and other experts underscored that MoCA scores and IQ are not interchangeable [1] [6] [2]. MedPage Today and other health-focused reporting noted Trump had taken the MoCA multiple times in 2025 and scored at/near perfect on those administrations, which matters clinically but does not equate to proving high intelligence [6].
4. Media reaction split by intent: ridicule, correction, or amplification
Some outlets led with ridicule and social-media mockery of the president’s claims — for example, pieces highlighting viral memes about the lawnmower comment [5]. Others prioritized corrective journalism: explaining what the MoCA measures, quoting its creator, and explaining why clinicians and reporters would not equate a perfect MoCA with an extraordinarily high IQ [1] [2] [3]. Still other pieces framed the episode politically: noting that Trump used the test’s results as a rhetorical weapon against political opponents, and that opponents, in turn, used his words for fundraising or satire [4] [7].
5. What the reporting leaves open and how to read it
Available sources do not provide independent, third‑party IQ testing results for Trump; they focus on his public statements, reported MoCA scores, expert clarification of what the MoCA measures, and the political fallout [1] [6]. Sources consistently warn that the MoCA “does not measure intelligence” even if a perfect score indicates no detectable cognitive impairment in the domains tested [1] [6]. Polling and perception pieces (YouGov) show that public views of politicians’ intelligence are partisan and contestable, which explains why reactions were predictably divided [10].
6. Bottom line: technical correction plus political theater
The factual through‑line in reporting is firm: Trump described taking an “IQ test” and used it as an attack; medical experts and multiple news outlets corrected that the exam in question was a screening tool (MoCA) not an IQ test, and political actors on both sides exploited the episode for mockery, fundraising and messaging [1] [3] [4]. Readers should separate two truths reported across sources: clinically, a perfect MoCA is evidence against detectable cognitive impairment in the domains tested [6]; politically, the president used his account of that exam as a rhetorical cudgel, prompting partisan responses and media explanation [4] [5].