Donald Trump has said he found a cognitive test which requires the identification of common animals and sums such as subtracting seven from 100 was “very hard”.

In an interview with Fox News Sunday, the president was attempting to prove he is smarter than his Democratic rival Joe Biden by referencing a test he took in 2018 that looks for signs of dementia.

Host Chris Wallace then revealed he too had taken the exam and it was “not the hardest” as one part simply required identifying a drawing of an elephant as an elephant.

Trump hit back: “Nah, nah, nah, that’s all misrepresentation. Because yes, the first few questions are easy but I bet you couldn’t even answer the last five questions.

“They get very hard, the last five questions.”

To which Wallace responded: “Well one of them was ‘count back from 100 by seven’.

Undeterred, Trump said he could “guarantee you Joe Biden couldn’t answer those questions”, before proudly adding: “And I answered all 25 questions correctly.”

Trump was referencing the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, and while the actual questions differ slightly, the following is a representative example.

The last question on this example of the test, which Trump said was “very hard” ones, is “where are you right now and what is the date?”

During the same interview, Trump also suggested he will not accept the result of November’s US presidential election if he loses to Biden.

He also repeated his claim that coronavirus will “disappear”, saying: “I’ll be right eventually. I will be right eventually.

“You know I said, ‘It’s going to disappear.’ I’ll say it again.”

The United States recorded a total of at least 70,674 new Covid-19 infections on Friday after climbing by a record 77,499 a day earlier, the largest increase posted by any country since the pandemic started, according to a Reuters tally.

US deaths on Friday rose by at least 912, the fourth day in a row that fatalities have exceeded 900 a day.

The country has been averaging about 60,000 cases a day in July with cases rising in 41 states on Friday.

Texas and Arkansas reported a record number of deaths on Friday, while Kansas, Ohio, North Dakota and Puerto Rico reported record numbers of infections.

Trump has urged a return to normal, stressing the importance of reigniting the economy.