Trump said he'd rather be a dictator than dumb, and people joked that he's both

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday joked about being called "a dictator" for years by the press.

He assumed being called a dictator was due the result of the cognitive test he has repeatedly boasted about passing back in 2018.

"First they said not too smart…But then, they made me a dictator instead," Trump said Thursday night at the Heritage Foundation's annual leadership conference in Florida.

"Which would you rather be, a dumb person or a dictator? Perhaps a dictator would be better. I don’t want to be a dumb person," he added.

Later on in the same speech, Trump said he was shocked nobody ever found out that he told the president of a NATO country in a closed door meeting that the United States would not protected any of them if they didn't increase their defense spending

According to Business Insider "experts on authoritarianism have warned that Trump not only frequently praises strongmen dictators on the world stage, but also exhibits authoritarian tendencies of his own, culminating in the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill."

The discourse on whether or not Trump was considered a dictator began because he did so well on a cognitive test he took in 2018.

"First they said, 'Not too smart,'" Trump said earlier in his speech. "Well that all went away, and I said, 'Doc Ronny [Jackson], I gotta take a test.' He said, "You know the problem is, sir, this is essentially a public place.' One of the great hospitals of the world, right? You have a series of doctors sitting there and all, and if you do badly, the word's gonna get out.

He continued, "And I did it in front of a panel, and we aced it. And the one person said, 'That's the first time I've ever seen anyone ace it.' So all of that stuff stopped ... but then they made me a dictator instead."

According to reports, the test in question is a Montreal Cognitive Assessment which is used to detect signs of dementia.

"Interesting admission from Trump tonight. (And living proof one can be both dumb and a dictator.)" wrote one person on Twitter.

Someone else wrote, "Trump thinks dictator and dumb person are opposites, which says a lot about how he is both a very dumb person and also someone who admires dictators and aspired to become one."

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