'Probably a Good Idea': Ronald Reagan's Daughter Calls Cognitive Tests for Presidential Candidates

Washington – The daughter of former US President Ronald Reagan, Patti Davis, endorsed the idea of conducting cognitive tests for presidential candidates. Before current US President Joe Biden and Former US President Donald Trump came to power, Reagan was the oldest American president to be ever elected when he assumed office. After the Reagan administration, both Trump and Biden have each broken the record of being the oldest president to assume office. While Trump was elected in 2016 at 70, Biden was elected in 2020 at 78. The endorsement from Reagan's daughter came during her one-on-one interview with NBC News. In the past, GOP Presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has advocated for conducting cognitive tests, calling it the “need of the hour”. 

“Probably, yeah,” Patti Davis told NBC News' “Meet the Press” when asked whether there should be cognitive tests for presidential candidates.  “Just what we know about what age can do — it doesn’t always do that — but it would probably be a good idea," she added. She noted that her father was 77 when he ultimately left the office, which sounds “young” if one compares it to the current circumstances. It is important to note that Reagan announced that he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1994, five years after he left the office. He was 83 at that time. 

Reagan would be ‘appalled’ 

In a thought-provoking interview with NBC News, Davis emphasised that her father would have been “appalled” by the state of today's political climate. She went on to state that the erstwhile president would have been “really scared” for American democracy. “He didn’t understand the lack of civility. He didn’t understand attacking another person,” Davis explained. “He didn’t understand cruelty, and that’s what we’re dealing with now,” she added. In 2019, Davis, who has never been a Republican said that her father would have been “horrified” by Trump's America. When asked what Reagan's message to today's politicians would be, Davis said that he would urge people to look at one another as human beings.  “I think he would want people to look at one another as human beings. You know, that’s why he and Gorbachev were able to do what they did, which was world-changing at the time because they looked at each other as human beings and that’s what’s missing now. You know, these were two people who were put on the stage of history at a moment in time to, in my opinion, do what God intended them to do. They might not have, you know? But they were both two people who I think had the same agenda of looking at each other as a human being,” she concluded.