Late-Night Hosts Clown Trump for Boasting About His Cognitive Test Results on Fox News

As the old proverb goes, when Donald Trump does a Fox News interview, the late-night hosts respond accordingly. The latest one, in which the president sat down with Chris Wallace, was no different. 

During the interview, Trump spoke proudly of passing a "very hard" cognitive test and challenging Democratic nominee Joe Biden to take the same, and Wallace responded by saying that he himself took the test and had a very different read on it. "It's not the hardest test," Wallace said. "They have a picture and it says, 'What's that?' And it's an elephant." You can probably already imagine how the late-night hosts ran away with that one, but let's dig into their responses anyway, shall we? 

Check out how Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon responded to the elephant identification, and Trump's interview as a whole, below.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert was very direct in his Late Show monologue, scoffing at Trump for boasting of passing such a basic test. "Passing a cognitive test is not impressive. It checks for things like brain damage, asking real stumpers like 'name these three animals,'" he said, showing a photo of the actual test. "It's chilling to see the most powerful man in the world bragging that he passed a test that they give to people to find out whether they should be allowed to take the bus by themselves."

He also shared an extremely real, definitely not just a scene from Good Will Hunting behind the scenes look at Trump taking the test.

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

Over at The Daily Show, Trevor Noah couldn't resist delightedly breaking down every part of Trump's interview, saying, "Wallace flat-out told Trump that his test score ain't sh--." He laughed even as he said it was "sort of making [him] sad" to watch Trump "trying so hard to claim he's a genius."

"If they wanted to test Trump, they shouldn't have asked him to identify an elephant," Noah said. "They should've asked him to identify his second daughter. Yeah, that would've been impressive."

Late Night with Seth Meyers

Seth Meyers went in on Trump's recent behavior throughout his "A Closer Look" segment on Late Night, calling him everything from "bored" to "sadistic." When he arrived at the Wallace interview, Meyers had a suggestion: "Here's a question that should be on Trump's next cognitive test: Name one question from your last cognitive test."

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

Officially back in the Tonight Showstudio, Jimmy Fallon expressed his frustration and disappointment in Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic before touching on the interview. "I'm glad Trump knows how to identify an elephant. If the country ever has an elephant pandemic we'll be in great shape," he quipped.