Mr Trump, 74, attempted to demonstrate his mental fitness by reciting five words, in order, importantly, over and over in a television interview.
The Republican president said that collection of nouns, or ones like them, was part of a cognitive test he had aced while declaring that his likely Democratic opponent, 77-year-old Joe Biden, could not do the same.
In a battle of septuagenarians, the Trump campaign has long tried to paint Mr Biden as having lost some of his mental sharpness.
But the gambit has yet to prove successful in denting the former vice president’s standing in the race.
That leaves Mr Trump trying to escalate the attacks while defending his own ability to handle the mental rigours of the job.
Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV
“The first questions are very easy,” Mr Trump told Fox News.
“The last questions are much more difficult.
“Like a memory question.
“It’s, like, you’ll go: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV. So they say, ‘Could you repeat that?’
“So I said, ‘Yeah. It’s: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.’”
He then recalled that, at the end of the test, the doctor asked him to recite it again.
“And you go: ‘Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV’.
“If you get it in order, you get extra points,” Mr Trump said.
“They said nobody gets it in order.
“It’s actually not that easy, but for me, it was easy.”
Mr Trump boasted that he dazzled the doctors because he has “a good memory, because I’m cognitively there” and delivered an unsubtle accusation about Mr Biden.
“Now Joe should take that test because something’s going on,” Mr Trump said.
“And, I say this with respect.
“I mean — going to probably happen to all of us, right?
“You know? It’s going to happen.”
Mr Trump has been known to declare that he is “a very stable genius” and that “I have the best words” while noting that he attended the prestigious Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
And about a month ago, he began telling aides that a cognitive test he took as part of his physical in 2018 could be something he could weaponise against Mr Biden.
The president has been known to recite five words to aides in the West Wing or on Air Force One, he would tweak the list to make it appropriate for the setting, while claiming that Mr Biden could not do the same.
