Trump touts his cognitive strength. But does he raise more questions with winding talk?

Donald Trump touted his mental sharpness Saturday in a winding discussion, interspersed with tangents, that raised questions about his recollection of a cognitive test roughly four years ago.

In the campaign speech in Las Vegas, Trump revealed he recently "aced" another cognitive test as part of his annual physical. Also at the appearance, Trump called for all presidential and vice presidential candidates to submit to cognitive and aptitude tests.

During his discussion about cognitive acuity, which came about 20 minutes into the nearly hour-and-half talk, Trump recounted what he complained was an ignored but telling element of the at-the-time widely publicized exam he was given while president — a mathematics problem he said he promptly solved at the time but then notably omitted providing the answer in telling the anecdote.

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Before the exam, Trump recalled, he was told by then-White House physician Ronny Jackson that the initial part of the "tough" test would be "easy." He said he was first given "a line" that had "lion, giraffe, a whale and a shark."

"That's all the press covered. The first question. They didn't cover the last question," Trump told the crowd.

That "last question," he said, required him to solve a mathematical equation without the aid of paper or pencil. Trump said he was asked to multiply 4,733 by 7, then divide the product by 4 and add 37.5 to the quotient.

"What's your number? How many people in this room could do it? Not too many," he said, while the crowd listened quietly waiting for the answer.

Trump didn't provide it, however, which is 8,320.25.

Trump appears to give a different slate of words to recite from the ones he listed in a 2020 interview

In his Las Vegas speech, the former president also appeared to list a different slate of words than the ones he said that he had been given in the test he took when he was president.

In a July 2020 interview, Trump said he was given the words "person, woman, man, camera and TV." On Saturday, he said he was given six "names," and listed chair, hat, badge, necklace and vote — just five words. He said that he was then asked, during that exam, to "rename them," and then to repeat in order again 30 minutes later.

"They say, 'What were those six things?" Trump said. "I did it very easily. But I got mocked. They said that's so easy. It's not easy. It's not easy. Go home and try doing it."

Trump's discussion of his 'excellent' cognitive test results comes as Haley badgers him over recent gaffes

Trump's boasted about his cognitive prowess as he has been under a microscope by last-standing rival Nikki Haley, who called for testing of presidential candidates over the age of 75 not long after she launched her campaign a year ago.

During her concession speech in New Hampshire on Jan. 23, Haley said the first party to "retire" their aged presidential candidate would win the White House.

"Trump claims he'd do better than me in one of those tests. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't," said Haley in baiting Trump by repeating her call for competency tests for older politicians. "But if he thinks that, then he should have no problem standing on a debate stage with me."

President Joe Biden, the nation's first octogenarian president, has received unwelcome criticism when he has misspoken.

This past week, a short clip of the president stumbling over words in a Wisconsin speech went viral. In North Carolina, he also had a recent momentary lapse in which he mistakenly said he just been photographed with a member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross, before remembering and correcting himself by saying that Ross was actually back in Washington.

On Saturday evening, Biden slipped again in a speech in South Carolina in which he referred to Trump as the "sitting president," although it is Biden who indeed is the Oval Office incumbent.

Trump calls on all presidential and vice presidential candidates to take cognitive tests

But Trump has logged a series of gaffes as well, which have led his critics to question his mental fitness for office particularly since has has so often ridiculed Biden.

Trump's discussion of the cognitive test came during a circular, winding 10-minute section of the speech in Las Vegas in which he also joked that Biden's speeches are short because "his gasoline sort of runs out."

Trump again taunted Biden with a quasi-slapstick routine in which he mimics what he said is the confused president attempting exit a stage after a speech. To audience laughter, Trump walked behind the podium and stands facing the backdrop behind him.

Once speaking into the microphone again, Trump departed on a series of tangents, briefly noting that he negotiated effectively with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and got along with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. He warned "you're very close to a third world war" and that he would have prevented the conflicts in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip.

He also bemoaned the increase in inflation and the fact that the price of oil at one time reached $110 a barrel and then that "our border was perfect." Before turning back to the cognitive test, Trump noted that his uncle, John Trump, had been the "longest-serving professor in the history of MIT."

Trump closed out the segment of the speech by challenging those running for president to take cognitive tests saying "I really believe it's important."

He also complained that he gets lumped in with older U.S. leaders in their 80s and pointed out he is only 77. "I'll tell you what, I feel sharper now that I did 20 years ago. I really do. I don't know. It's probably not true."

Then he called for the cognitive testing, saying it would be his "thing," even though a list .

"That's going to be my thing," he said. "But I think every body running for president and vice president should take a cognitive test. Everybody."

Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.