Questions about the cognitive health of Democrat Presidential candidate Joe Biden are growing as the US heads towards the final months of the election.
Biden has dismissed concerns about his alleged cognitive decline by implying that he is “constantly testing” for it on the campaign trail, but he confessed to a reporter on Tuesday that he’s never actually taken a cognitive health test.
Biden deflects
In a late-June press conference, Biden was asked by a reporter if he had ever “been tested for some degree of cognitive decline?”
Biden replied at the time: “I’ve been testing, and I’m constantly testing. Look, all you got to do is watch me. And I can hardly wait to compare my cognitive capability to the cognitive capability of the man I’m running against.”
Biden was again asked on Tuesday to confirm whether he had taken any kind of cognitive health test, and this time, he denied it.
The 77-year-old presidential hopeful grew visibly irritated and told the reporter “No, I haven’t taken a test. Why the hell would I take a test? C’mon, man.”
Biden fired back at the reporter — who is black — “That’s like saying you, before you got in this program, ‘Will you take a test, were you taking cocaine or not?’ What do you think, huh? Are you a junkie?'”
Biden then stumbled through the rest of his interview, at another point saying that he is “very willing to let the American public judge my physical and mental — my physical as well as mental fill — fitness, and to, you know, to make a judgment about who I am.”
Trump snaps back
Biden has attempted to deflect criticism about his cognitive decline to Trump, which may have prompted Trump to undergo his own cognitive testing to silence any allegations.
In June, Biden said that Trump is the one that is experiencing a decline, claiming “This president talks about cognitive capability. He doesn’t seem to be cognitively aware of what’s going on,” in reference to recently surfaced accusations that Russia had placed bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Contrary to Biden’s strategy, Trump openly touted a “difficult” cognitive test that he took in July, claiming that he scored “30 out of 30” on the test, a feat which few are able to achieve.
“Joe should take that test because something is going on, and I say this with respect,” Trump told Politico at the time. “I mean, [it’s] going to probably happen to all of us, right? You know, it’s going to happen. But we can’t take a chance of it happening.”
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