Keep Factually independent
Whether you agree or disagree with our analysis, these conversations matter for democracy. We don't take money from political groups - even a $5 donation helps us keep it that way.
Fact check: Have Trump's campaign or legal teams released medical records showing cognitive test scores in 2023 or 2024?
Executive Summary
Donald Trump and his medical team have publicly claimed excellent cognitive results, and the White House later released a medical memo reporting a perfect 30/30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, but public disclosure of detailed cognitive test records from Trump’s campaign or legal teams for 2023–2024 is not supported by the available documentation. Reporting in 2023 shows a doctor's note praising his cognition without numeric scores, several 2024 accounts recount his boasts about “acing” cognitive tests without releasing underlying score sheets, and definitive numeric disclosure appears in a White House medical report dated April 13, 2025 [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]. The record shows a pattern of descriptive claims and later executive-branch release rather than campaign or legal-team publication of raw 2023–2024 cognitive test score data.
1. How claims and partial documents shaped the early narrative
In 2023 Trump’s camp circulated statements and a physician’s note asserting he was in “excellent” cognitive health, and the note characterized his exams as “exceptional,” but that 2023 documentation did not include specific test types or numeric scores, leaving the claim substantively unverified by score sheets [1]. Contemporary press coverage recorded Trump’s own public boasting that he had “aced” a cognitive test, but reporters noted the absence of documented scores or the identification of the exact instrument used in public-facing campaign or legal releases [2]. This combination of promotional language plus a summary medical note created public impressions of strong cognition while withholding granular evidence that would allow independent review or forensics, a gap repeatedly highlighted through 2023 and into 2024 reporting [4] [6].
2. What 2024 reporting actually documented — assertions, not score releases
Throughout 2024 journalism on the subject tracked Trump’s verbal claims and the popularity of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA) as the likely instrument he referenced, with outlets reconstructing what a “perfect” MOCA would look like and publishing mock tests for public readers, but no campaign or legal-team release in 2024 provided authenticated score sheets or full medical records showing MOCA or other cognitive test results [5] [6]. Coverage emphasized the limits of self-reported victory laps and the diagnostic boundaries of the MOCA — a screening tool rather than a definitive cognitive battery — underscoring that a public claim of “acing” a test does not equate to transparent release of the primary medical data needed for independent verification [5].
3. The 2025 White House report changed what was publicly available
On April 13, 2025, the White House released a medical memo from the president’s physician noting a 30/30 score on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, framing it as part of an overall “excellent” health evaluation and citing fitness for duty [3] [7] [8]. That release constitutes explicit numeric disclosure of a cognitive-screening score, but it came from the executive office’s physician and not from Trump’s campaign or legal teams for the earlier 2023–2024 period. The distinction matters because the campaign/legal channels had earlier asserted strong cognitive health without producing raw test records, and the 2025 disclosure does not retroactively demonstrate that the campaign or legal teams had released such documentation in 2023 or 2024 [3] [7].
4. Competing interpretations and what remains unproven
Advocates for Trump pointed to doctor’s summaries and later the White House memo as sufficient evidence that cognitive concerns were unfounded, while critics argued the initial absence of raw test scores in 2023–2024 indicated a lack of transparency and prevented third-party confirmation. Both positions rely on factual kernels: documented promotional notes and public boasting exist, and an executive branch disclosure with a numeric MOCA score exists in 2025. What remains unproven by the supplied materials is any campaign-or-legal-team release of detailed cognitive test score sheets during 2023 or 2024; the sources uniformly indicate assertions rather than publication of primary score documents in that earlier window [1] [2] [4] [6].
5. Bottom line and context for readers assessing the record
The factual record in these sources shows promised or summarized cognitive health statements in 2023 and 2024 without corresponding release of underlying test scores by the campaign or legal teams, and a concrete numeric MOCA disclosure appears later from the White House in April 2025 [1] [2] [5] [7]. Readers assessing transparency should note the difference between summaries from personal physicians and formal, dated medical releases: a doctor’s note or a campaign statement can assert fitness, but independent evaluation and public confidence are stronger when full records or validated numeric results are released contemporaneously. The materials available through these analyses do not show such contemporaneous campaign or legal-team disclosures for 2023 or 2024 [1] [4] [8].