Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said she sees “no reason to believe” that former President Trump would not perform well on the mental competency test that she proposed for politicians older than 75 upon launching her presidential run this week.
“I think he did great the last time he did it. I have no reason to think he wouldn’t do well this time. But I do think we need it,” Haley said in an interview on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” on Thursday.
Haley first suggested the test during her rally in Charleston, S.C., on Wednesday, when she launched her 2024 presidential bid. The former South Carolina governor is the first major Republican candidate other than Trump to jump in the race.
Haley also called for establishing term limits for members of Congress as part of a message of pushing for a new generation to become leaders in Washington, D.C. She affirmed “new generational leadership” is needed in an interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday when he asked her about her differences with Trump.
Trump touted his success on a cognitive test during the 2020 presidential election.
“It was 30 or 35 questions. The first questions are very easy. The last questions are much more difficult. Like a memory question,” Trump told Fox News at the time. “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.”
While Trump emphasized the test as evidence of him having a high IQ, experts reportedly said it is only meant to determine if someone has dementia or is experiencing other cognitive decline.
Haley said Thursday that cognitive tests are needed for offices beyond president, including Congress and other elected officials.
“When people send someone to Washington, they need to know they’re at the top of their game. That’s why I think those competency tests are important,” she said.
Haley also took a dig at President Biden, saying that the country “can’t have someone like Joe Biden, who’s asleep at the wheel, and have China sitting there threatening us and us wondering if he actually knows what’s going on.”
She said the competency tests are not about any one person but rather about “everything that’s happening in D.C.”