BURST(NEXSTAR) – President Trump announced plans to undergo a “semiannual” physical at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday, about six months after his last annual physical.
When discussing his doctor’s visit in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump also bragged to reporters about the “perfect score” he says he achieved after his last cognitive assessment.
“I also did a cognitive exam, which is always very risky, because if I didn’t do very well you’d be the first to be blaring it, and I had a perfect score,” Trump said. “And one of the doctors said he’s almost never seen a perfect score. I had a, had a perfect score. I had the highest score. And that made me feel good.”
It was unclear if Trump would be undergoing another cognitive assessment on Friday. But he made it clear that he believed “you should do a cognitive exam” if you’re a U.S. president.
“The first few questions are pretty easy,” he added a moment later. “Once you get into the middle it gets a little trickier, and there aren’t a lot of people in this room that would get every single question right, I can guarantee you.”
Trump did not go into further detail about the questions on his previous assessments. In the past, however, he has said the more difficult part of the exam concerned a “memory” component.
“The first questions are very easy, the last questions are much more difficult. Like a memory question,” Trump told Fox News in 2020. “It’s like, you’ll go, ‘Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.’ So they’d say, ‘Could you repeat that.’ So I said, ‘Yeah. So it’s person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.’“
“It’s actually not that easy. But for me it was easy,” Trump continued.
Trump, in another Fox News interview in 2020 with Chris Wallace, defended the difficulty of the exam after Wallace said he found it to be easy.
“Well, how’d you do?” Trump asked.
“Well, it’s not the hardest test. The last picture, it says, ‘What’s that?’ and it’s an elephant.”
“No, no, see, that’s all misrepresentation,” Trump said. “Because, yes, the first few questions are easy, but I’ll bet you couldn’t even answer the last five questions. … They get very hard, the last five questions.”
The test Wallace was referring to, according to photos presented during the interview, was the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. President Trump’s former physician Dr. Ronny Jackson, as well as Trump’s current physician Dr. Sean Barbabella, have also confirmed they administered the Montreal Cognitive Assessment to Trump, in 2018 and 2025, respectively. Both doctors said he scored a “30 out of 30” on the respective assessments.
What’s on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment?
The Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MoCA, was developed by Dr. Ziad Nasreddine, a Canadian neurologist, as a screening tool to help detect cognitive impairment. It contains questions designed to assess cognitive function by testing a patient’s language, memory, visuospatial abilities and orientation, among other assessment categories.
The standard MoCA test itself should take about 10 minutes to complete. Only professionals who have completed MoCA training are permitted to administer the test, but sample versions found online show that patients are asked to follow patterns, copy drawings, repeat phrases or recall a series of words.
A score of 26 or above (out of a possible 30) is considered normal. A score of 22 may indicate mild cognitive impairment, while lower scores may indicate more serious or progressive cognitive issues.
The test is not, however, intended as a measure of intelligence, Nasreddine once told NBC News.
“There are no studies showing that this test is correlated to IQ tests," Nasreddine said. "The purpose of it was not to determine persons who have a low IQ level. So we cannot say that this test reflects somebody's IQ.”
Cognitive abilities aside, the results of President Trump’s last physical at Walter Reed, in April 2025, showed Trump’s skin had “some minor sun damage” and his ear showed scarring from “a gunshot wound.” But a subsequent tests revealed the president was found to have chronic venous insufficiency, a condition which occurs when blood in the legs has trouble flowing back to the heart, causing possible swelling, pain or varicose veins.
He’s also been seen with bruising on his hands, which his doctor, Sean Barbabella, had chalked up to “minor soft tissue irritation from frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin, which is taken as part of a standard cardiovascular prevention regimen.”
“President Trump remains in excellent health,” Barbabella wrote in a July memo.