- Trump has mixed up "Obama" and "Biden" numerous times in recent campaign speeches.
- In an early morning Truth Social post, he said each mix-up was intentional.
In an early-morning screed, former President Donald Trump said the repeated times he's mixed up the names of former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden during speeches have been intentional.
"Whenever I sarcastically insert the name Obama for Biden as an indication that others may actually be having a very big influence 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,'" Trump wrote. "No, I know both names very well, never mix them up, and know that they are destroying our Country."
Trump made the post to his self-owned social media site, Truth Social, in the early hours of Monday morning. Trump has, indeed, mixed up the names of Biden and Obama on numerous occasions in recent months, as Forbes documented in mid-November.
Fellow Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has used these gaffes (intentionally committed by Trump or not) in an attempt to drum up support for his faltering campaign. In November, the campaign began a specific tally of Trump's goofs and implied that the missteps were a key reason Trump avoided debates.
"Trump confuses Obama and Biden again," wrote DeSantis' "War Room" account on X in October.
In his morning monologue, the former president also pointed to his recently released and vaguely written health exam that noted his overall health is "excellent," including a cognitive exam.
"Also, and as reported, I just took a cognitive test as part of my Physical Exam, and ACED it," Trump added. "Also ACED (a perfect score!) one taken while in the White House."
Since taking the latter test in 2020, Trump has repeatedly bragged about "acing" the "very hard" cognitive test despite medical experts saying that he's misrepresented what the test is actually for: identifying memory or thinking impairments, not intelligence.
At the moment, according to an average of national polls, Trump holds a commanding lead over the rest of the GOP field with an average of 60.3% support. The candidate in second place, DeSantis, is only averaging 12.6% support at the moment.