Trump Says His Normal Cognitive Ability Will Help Solve North Korean Situation

TOPSHOT - US President Donald Trump gestures as he boards Airforce One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on January 12, 2018, for a weekend trip to Mar-a-Lago. / AFP PHOTO / Nicholas Kamm (Photo credit should r... TOPSHOT - US President Donald Trump gestures as he boards Airforce One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on January 12, 2018, for a weekend trip to Mar-a-Lago. / AFP PHOTO / Nicholas Kamm (Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his predecessors let the North Korean nuclear situation fester because he’d be better suited to handle it, given his normal cognitive abilities. 

“I guess they all realized they were going to have to leave it to a President that scored the highest on tests,” he told Reuters in an interview.

He was presumably referring to his doctor telling White House reporters Tuesday that Trump had aced the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which includes tasks like naming animals underneath pictures of them, identifying one’s current location and drawing clock hands.

The test is useful in assessing dementia patients or stroke victims, Vox reported.

It measures cognitive function and is not a psychiatric or psychological exam, Trump’s doctor specified.

Trump told Reuters that North Korea is getting “closer every day” to achieving a missile capable of reaching American shores.

“I’d sit down, but I‘m not sure that sitting down will solve the problem,” he said, referring to negotiations with North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un. He said he hoped the standoff between him and Kim could be resolved “in a peaceful way, but it’s very possible that it can’t.”

Asked about a pre-emptive strike against North Korea — “a limited, pre-emptive attack to show the North that the United States means business,” Reuters wrote — Trump said: “We’re playing a very, very hard game of poker and you don’t want to reveal your hand.”

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