A week ago, Donald Trump delivered remarks at the Summit on New Science Initiatives, which was largely unremarkable except for one comment the president made toward the beginning of his speech.

“We have an extremely high-IQ audience for a change,” he said. “For a change. It’s very nice.”

With Trump generally limiting his audiences to his own supporters, this seemed like an odd thing to say aloud. Nevertheless, he kept this going two days later, headlining a campaign rally in Tennessee on Saturday, where he told attendees, “It’s amazing. When you stand up here, it’s just like, the love. I could say the stupidest things and you’d clap.”

For the record: Upon hearing this, some of his supporters did, in fact, clap.

But in case that weren’t quite enough, on Wednesday afternoon in Arizona, the president appeared to insult his followers yet again.

As part of an unscripted riff on how smart Trump thinks he is, he told attendees about his experiences taking cognitive tests, declaring, “It’s a very standard test, but very tough.”

He quickly added, “There are few people in this audience that can …,” though he interrupted himself before finishing the sentence. The president proceeded to say that to answer the questions toward the end, “you have to be very, very smart.”

Trump went on to boast that doctors were so impressed with his aptitude that they said, “Holy s–––, nobody can do that.” But according to the president, he did it anyway, because he’s “a freaking genius.”

So, two things.

First, Trump has long struggled to understand the point of these tests. They’re not exams used to measure intelligence, despite his incessant claims to the contrary. Rather, these tests are used to identify dementia, mental deterioration and neurodegenerative diseases. Those who do well are clearing a low bar, and are not necessarily “freaking geniuses.”

The fact that he found them “very tough” is itself an unsettling sign, especially amid broader concerns about his mental fitness.

Second, Trump’s supporters should probably take great offense by his suggestion that “few people” in his rally audience could fare as well as he did on this cognitive test.

“If you look at the test, it’s pretty hard to see how you could not score a 30 [out of 30],” a Washington Post analysis explained in 2018, adding, “Yes, Trump passed with flying colors, as any adult with normal cognitive function probably would.”

Taken together, it’s hard not to get the impression that the president doesn’t exactly hold his supporters in high regard.

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