🔥 BREAKING: STEPHEN COLBERT UNSEALS TRUMP’S 1970 “IQ TEST” LIVE ON TV — THE RESULTS TRIGGER AN INSTANT MELTDOWN ⚡

For decades, Donald Trump has insisted that intelligence — not merely wealth or power — lies at the core of his personal brand. He has described himself as uniquely gifted, dismissing expertise, credentials, and institutional authority in favor of instinct and self-assurance. That image, reinforced through repetition and bravado, has become a defining feature of his public persona.

This week, that long-standing narrative faced renewed scrutiny on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where host Stephen Colbert devoted an extended segment to examining Mr. Trump’s claims of intellectual superiority. The segment, while comedic in tone, was framed around documents and reporting that Mr. Colbert and his guests said undercut the former president’s self-description as a “very stable genius.”

Central to the discussion was the presentation of what was described on air as Mr. Trump’s college entrance exam score from the mid-1960s. The document was introduced by Representative Jasmine Crockett, who emphasized that the material had not been publicly released by Mr. Trump himself. According to the segment, the score — if authentic — would have placed him slightly below the national average at the time.

The program made clear that such a score would not, on its own, define a person’s intelligence or future success. Standardized tests, educators routinely note, capture only a narrow range of abilities and are shaped by socioeconomic context. But the relevance, Mr. Colbert argued, lay less in the number itself than in the contrast between that number and Mr. Trump’s decades-long insistence that he possessed exceptional intellectual gifts.

The segment also revisited Mr. Trump’s history of publicly challenging the intelligence of rivals, critics, and even members of his own administration, including former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Mr. Trump has repeatedly suggested that intelligence can be easily quantified and compared — a position that made the late-night focus on standardized metrics both pointed and ironic.

After the comedic reveal, the show shifted to a more serious register, citing recent reporting by The Wall Street Journal regarding a previously undisclosed 2003 birthday letter that Mr. Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein. According to the Journal, the letter contained sexually suggestive language. Mr. Trump has not publicly authenticated the letter and has denied wrongdoing related to Mr. Epstein, but the report added to the sense that aspects of Mr. Trump’s carefully managed image continue to face exposure.

The late-night discussion also echoed claims made years earlier by Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former attorney, who testified before Congress that part of his role had been to discourage schools and institutions from releasing records related to Mr. Trump’s academic history. Those allegations have never been adjudicated in court, but they have lingered as part of a broader narrative about secrecy and brand protection.

Taken together, the material presented on the program did not amount to a factual finding about Mr. Trump’s intelligence. Instead, it functioned as a critique of mythmaking — the process by which confidence, repetition, and domination of media space can substitute for verification. As Ms. Crockett noted during the segment, Mr. Trump has often derided education and expertise as elitist while simultaneously demanding proof of intelligence from others.

The public reaction was swift. Clips circulated widely online, and social media users seized on the reported test score as shorthand for what they viewed as a collapse of a long-maintained legend. Supporters countered that intelligence cannot be reduced to a decades-old exam and accused critics of elitism and bad faith. Both reactions underscored the same reality: Mr. Trump’s political identity remains inseparable from his self-presentation.

In that sense, the episode was less about an SAT score than about credibility. Mr. Trump’s appeal has always rested on assertions of superiority — superior instincts, superior deal-making, superior understanding of the world. When those assertions encounter documents, data, or testimony that suggest a more ordinary picture, the tension becomes politically potent.

Late-night television did not dismantle Mr. Trump’s influence. But it highlighted a vulnerability that has long existed beneath the bravado. For a figure who built power on the claim of being smarter than everyone else in the room, even the suggestion that the math does not add up can be destabilizing. Whether voters see that as satire, scandal, or sideshow may ultimately matter more than the number itself.