The president of QI Is Donald Trump superiorly intelligent?
Criticized for the poverty of his vocabulary and his cookie-cutter reflections, Trump nevertheless claims to be a champion of IQ tests.
Clever genius
A familiar voice echoes through Sean Hannity's earpiece. This Thursday July 9, 2020, the square face of the political commentator lights up on Fox News. "How's Mark?" »Donald Trump has just asked him, invited for a telephone interview. The US president asks for news of another guest, lawyer Mark Levin, as if he were talking to a friend. He knows he is on conquered ground here.
With 117 days before the presidential election, Trump is cordially asked about the upcoming poll, Covid-19 and its program. When Sean Hannity asks him if his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, has the mental capacity to be president, he has a scathing response: "He didn't pass any cognitive test because he couldn't pass a single one," attacked. he does.
"I had one very recently", continues the billionaire, "when the radical left asked if I had all my means, and I proved that I had all my means because I successfully passed the test . Trump says he showed great intelligence in front of doctors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. They were "very surprised", he said. “It’s amazing. Few people do what you just did, ”they would have said.
However, no additional information has leaked out about this test. In January 2018, Donald Trump did get a perfect score on a cognitive test, according to a White House doctor, but that is not enough to prove that he is "superior" intelligent: it was a test to detect cognitive problems in the elderly, consisting of identifying animals, drawing a clock and performing simple memory exercises.
For his critics, Trump's recent statements are, on the contrary, a bad test. During the daily White House briefing on the coronavirus crisis on Thursday, April 23, the head of state considered that it could be interesting to study the effect of an injection of disinfectant directly into the body of patients. He also considered the use of sunlight to fight the novel coronavirus. “I saw that the disinfectant could kill the virus in a minute. One minute ! Is there a way to do something like this, with an injection? Wondered the president, leaving the experts and doctors banned.
Trump also wants to believe that 99% of Covid-19 cases in the United States are "mild", while 20% of infections result in hospitalization. According to Los Angeles Times reporter Michael McGough, Donald Trump is just plain ignorant and lacks the seriousness you expect from a president. But if this nonsense has an end, does it not prove the sense of the president's strategy?
Mystery IQ
Trump didn't wait until he was president to praise his intelligence. "Sorry losers and haters, but my IQ is one of the best and you all know it!" He tweeted on May 9, 2013. “Please don't feel stupid or anxious, it's not your fault. "
In January 2004, he was a guest on the set of the Today Show, an American morning television show, to promote his reality show The Apprentice. Donald Trump immediately complimented the unrivaled intellectual skills of those who applied to him for work in one of his companies. “They are brilliant. They have about 200 IQs, all "and" amazing brains. " And whoever recruits them can of course not be less.
In March 2016, in the midst of the presidential campaign, Carnegie-Mellon University published a study analyzing the speeches of candidates for the Republican primary. She came to the conclusion that Donald Trump was using vocabulary worthy of a child in fifth grade. For Politico magazine, this result does not prove that Trump is dumb. Rather, it shows that he speaks a very everyday language, with a great economy of words.
During his campaign and his presidential term, Donald Trump has repeatedly praised ... Donald Trump. On several occasions, the Republican congratulated himself and asserted that he was "a very intelligent person," as he said on October 25, 2017. A few months earlier, in July, he bordered on self-idolatry. "With the exception of the great Abraham Lincoln, I can be the most able president of all the presidents who have held this role," he said to the crowd.
However, this is not everyone's opinion. At a dinner held in Washington on July 18, 2017, National Security Advisor Herbert Raymond McMaster called him an idiot and a moron with the intelligence of a kindergarten child. According to prominent sources, then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called him a fool around the same time, during a Pentagon meeting. "I think this is false information," Donald Trump replied. “But if he said so, I think we'll have to compare our IQ tests. And I can tell you who will win. "
In May 2019, Donald Trump also called himself a "very stable genius," as if he needed this mantra to convince. “Much of his obsession stems from his fear of not being seen as a smart person,” said a former White House official. Donald Trump has talked about his intelligence and his exceptional achievement in cognitive tests and yet no official results have ever been released. "If he really took an IQ test, then why doesn't he post the results? Asks American psychologist Dean Keith Simonton. A question to which only the American president has the answer.
