Donald Trump Keeps Insisting He Is Not Cognitively Impaired

Donald Trump once again denied having any cognitive issues, repeating his claim that he is being sarcastic when he mixes up President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama.

Trump made the comments during a town hall discussion with Fox News' Sean Hannity on Tuesday night.

"I'll say the real president is Barack Hussein Obama," Trump said. "They'll say he doesn't know who the president is, he thinks it's Barack Hussein Obama. No, I'm being sarcastic."

Trump, who is leading the race for the Republican nomination, also commented on Biden's cognitive state.

"We have a man that can't put two sentences together. We have a man that doesn't know he's alive," he said.

Moments earlier, he noted the issue was "serious."

"We shouldn't be joking about it," Trump said.

Trump's latest remarks come as age is shaping up as an important issue in the 2024 election, which could be a rematch of Trump and Biden's first race in 2020.

Some of Trump's rivals for the Republican nomination have sought to highlight his age—77—and cognitive state by drawing attention to his recent flubs.

He has confused Obama and Biden at least seven times in recent months, Forbes reported in November. Trump also mixed up the city and state where he was campaigning and called Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán the leader of Turkey.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' campaign took to social media in early November to share a running list of Trump's "fumbles, accidents, and confused moments from this year."

Trump hit back on his Truth Social platform later in November, saying he was "sarcastically" mixing up Obama and Biden.

"Whenever I sarcastically insert the name Obama for Biden as an indication that others may actually be having a very big influence in running our Country, Ron DeSanctimonious and his failing campaign apparatus, together with the Democrat's Radical Left 'Disinformation Machine,' go wild saying that 'Trump doesn't know the name of our President, (CROOKED!) Joe Biden. He must be cognitively impaired,'" he wrote.

"No, I know both names very well, never mix them up, and know that they are destroying our Country."

In that post, he also boasted that he "ACED" a cognitive test as part of his recent physical exam.

Trump also marked Biden's 81st birthday on November 20 by releasing a letter from his physician that reported that he is in excellent physical and mental health.

The letter from Dr. Bruce A. Aronwald, a New Jersey physician who says he has been Trump's doctor since 2021 and most recently examined him in September, said Trump's "physical exams were well within the normal range and his cognitive exams were exceptional."

Although Trump is not much younger than Biden, who is the oldest person ever elected president, polls have repeatedly found that Americans view age as more of a liability for Biden than Trump.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in mid-September found 77 percent of respondents, including 65 percent of Democrats, said Biden is too old to be president, while just 39 percent said Biden was mentally sharp enough for the presidency. By comparison, 56 percent of respondents said Trump is too old for the office, while 54 percent said he was mentally sharp enough for the presidency.

And an August poll from The Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 77 percent of U.S. adults, including 69 percent of Democrats, viewed Biden as too old to be effective for four more years, while only 51 percent of adults—and just 28 percent of Republicans—said Trump is too old.

Newsweek has reached out to the Trump and Biden campaigns via email for comment.