Trump One-Ups Nikki Haley’s Only Campaign Plank

Donald Trump is calling for all presidential candidates to take mental competency and physical health tests to demonstrate their fitness for office.

“ANYBODY running for the Office of President of the United States should agree to take a full & complete Mental Competency Test simultaneously (or before!) with the announcement that he or she is running, & likewise, but to a somewhat lesser extent, agree to a test which would prove that you are physically capable of doing the job,” the former president wrote Tuesday on Truth Social. “Being an outstanding President requires great mental acuity & physical stamina. If you don’t have these qualities or traits, it is likely you won’t succeed. MAGA!”

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Trump’s post comes a week after Nikki Haley launched her 2024 campaign around the idea that America needs a “new generation” of political leaders and that anyone over 75 running for office should be required to take a mental competency test.

Haley’s campaign doesn’t appear to be based on much other than this vague promise that she will usher in a new era of conservative governance. She has been asked repeatedly what differentiates her from Trump and has refused to answer.

Haley hasn’t really been able to explain why she’s running at all. “Why not me?” she responded when Fox News asked her on Sunday to respond to criticism that she hasn’t provided any real rationale for her candidacy.

Trump’s mental acuity has long been a subject of debate. He told Fox News in 2020 he asked his physician a year earlier if there was a cognitive test he could take to “shut these people up” who had been questioning his mental competency. Trump claimed the doctors were amazed at how easily he “aced” the “difficult” test.

“It was 30 or 35 questions. The first questions are very easy,” Trump explained. “The last questions are much more difficult. Like a memory question. It’s like, you’ll go, ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ So they say, ‘Could you repeat that?’ So I said, ‘Yeah.’ So it’s, ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ OK, that’s very good. If you get it in order, you get extra points.”

“It’s actually not that easy,” Trump continued. “But for me, it was easy.”

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