The big news from President Trump’s weekend interview with Fox’s Chris Wallace is that Wallace challenged Trump’s contention that Biden has agreed to defund the police. (Trump is right; Wallace is wrong. Just saying.) What got some press, although not as much, is Trump’s claim that the standard cognitive test he took was “very hard.” Wallace smugly countered this assertion, as did every Democrat. Trump, of course, will have the last laugh because he’s forcing Biden to take the test.

During the interview with Wallace, Trump pushed hard about Biden’s mental competence (emphasis mine):

TRUMP: And you know why I won’t lose, because the country in the end, they’re not going to have a man who – who’s shot. He’s shot, he’s mentally shot. Let him come out of his basement, go around, I’ll make four or five speeches a day, I’ll be interviewed by you, I’ll be interviewed by the worst killers that hate my – my guts. They hate my guts. There’s nothing they can ask me that I won’t give them a proper answer to. Some people will like it, some people won’t like it.

WALLACE: I agree with that.

TRUMP: But look –

WALLACE: You answer the questions.

TRUMP: Let Biden sit through an interview like this, he’ll be on the ground crying for mommy. He’ll say mommy, mommy, please take me home.

WALLACE: Well we’ve asked him for an interview, sir.

TRUMP: He can’t do an interview. He’s incompetent.

What was strange (to Democrats) about Trump’s attack on Biden’s incompetency was the fact that, just a few minutes earlier in the interview, Trump had stated that the standard cognitive test for mental competency was “hard.” The subject came up when Wallace pointed to a Fox poll claiming that Biden had a “sounder” mind than Trump. Trump came out swinging about the cognitive test he’d just taken, and made sure to say how difficult it was (emphasis mine):

TRUMP:  Well, I'll tell you what, let's take a test.  Let's take a test right now. Let's go down, Joe and I will take a test. Let him take the same test that I took.

WALLACE:  Incidentally, I took the test too when I heard that you passed it.

TRUMP:  Yeah, how did you do?

WALLACE:  It's not – well it's not that hardest test. They have a picture and it says “what’s that” and it’s an elephant.

TRUMP:  No, no, no. . . .

TRUMP:  You see, that's all misrepresentation.

WALLACE:  Well, that's what it was on the web.

TRUMP:  It's all misrepresentation. Because, yes, the first few questions are easy, but I'll bet you couldn't even answer the last five questions. I'll bet you couldn't, they get very hard, the last five questions.

WALLACE:  Well, one of them was count back from 100 by seven.

TRUMP:  Let me tell you. . . .

WALLACE:  Ninety-three.

TRUMP: ... you couldn't answer -- you couldn't answer many of the questions.

WALLACE:  Ok, what's the question?

TRUMP:  I'll get you the test, I'd like to give it. I'll guarantee you that Joe Biden could not answer those questions.

WALLACE:  OK.

TRUMP:  OK. And I answered all 35 questions correctly.

To the uninitiated, Trump sounds moronic. To those who know how Trump works, he just threw down the gauntlet and Biden’s in big trouble. By saying the basic test is hard, and boasting about his outcome, Trump not only got Chris Wallace to say the test is easy, he got everyone else on the left to do the same:

Trump about the cognitive test he took: "... The first few questions are easy, but I'll bet you couldn't even answer the last five questions. I'll bet you couldn't, they get very hard, the last five questions."

The last five questions: "What day is it?" and "Where are you?" pic.twitter.com/NFQN055nSf

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) July 19, 2020

Jeebus H. Christ. The country that sent men to the moon 50 years ago now has a president that brags he can identify a cat on a cognitive test.

— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) July 19, 2020

Here’s how stupid @presssec is:

Now, hundreds of journalists and every single newsroom will get a sample of the cognitive test that donald took, and publish it for all the world to take.

— Lincoln's Bible (@LincolnsBible) July 19, 2020

The entire Trump campaign is now perfectly positioned to say, “Okay, let Biden prove he isn’t mentally incompetent. Let him prove he’s smarter than Trump. Every single Democrat is insisting the test is easy.  Therefore, Biden should ‘ace’ it, just as Trump -- who said it was ‘hard’ -- aced it.”

If Biden doesn’t take the test, Trump can shame him for being frightened of an easy test. If Biden does take the test that Democrats insist is easy, Trump is gambling (correctly, I suspect) that Biden can’t pass. It’s a lose-lose for Biden. By the way, this is Biden:

Baffling! Joe Biden just appeared on MSNBC and mumbled something about "voter registration physicians...” 🤔 pic.twitter.com/hSSCc0R8sz

— TV News HQ (@TVNewsHQ) July 20, 2020

For those who have been paying attention, Trump is doing to Biden exactly what he did to Elizabeth “Pocahantas” Warren. His needling got her to take a DNA test that proved that she’s 1/1024 Native American. She outed her own lie. Biden will be forced into outing his own cognitive decline.

(By the way, here’s Biden supporting taking funds away, aka defunding, the police.)

Image: Twitter screengrab