At the start of a Cabinet meeting just after noon ET on Tuesday, President Donald Trump made his seemingly obligatory reference to “Sleepy Joe” Biden.
He then assured that he was “sharper than I was 25 years ago” as he chided The New York Times for a long and detailed story last week describing how the 79-year-old president appears to have slowed down during his second term.
“Trump is sharp, but they’re not sharp,” Trump said of the newspaper.
Trump chastised reporters for what he saw as unfair treatment when it came to his health and stamina, adding: “You guys are crazy.”
But for the next hour and a half, Trump struggled to embody the sharpness and vigor he had just claimed.
In fact, he seemed to be fighting a long and often losing battle with a nap. Even as his cabinet was assembled to engage in one of his favorite activities — singing Trump’s praises — he repeatedly appeared giddy.
It was the kind of scene, in fact, that Trump once derided as evidence of a president’s lack of stamina and fitness for office.
About 15 minutes after addressing the health and fitness reports, Trump appeared to struggle to keep his eyes open as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick praised his trade wars and hailed “the greatest cabinet for the greatest president ever.”
Trump’s blinks appeared to grow slower as he heard from Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner and then Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. The fight became even more real when he heard from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin.
As Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke, Trump appeared frozen with his eyes closed for 10 to 15 seconds at a time before finally moving his eyes or nodding.
Just before 1:45pm ET, he gave Secretary of State Marco Rubio the same treatment as Rubio praised Trump’s efforts to end wars. Except this time Trump’s apparent heritage was more pronounced as he was seated right next to the secretary and the cameras zoomed in on the two of them. (Previous speakers had been more distant from Trump.)
At the end of Rubio’s monologue, the secretary of state joked about how we are now in “the most wonderful, magical time of the year. And by that, of course, I mean the College Football Playoff.”
If Trump heard the joke, he barely showed it.
Asked about the scene on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that Trump had “listened intently and conducted the entire marathon three-hour Cabinet meeting.” She praised him for holding nine Cabinet meetings this year and for an “exclamation point” response during a question and answer session when he attacked Democrats and Somali immigrants.
“Throughout these historic meetings, the president and his incredible team highlight the exhaustive list of accomplishments they have accomplished on behalf of the American people to make America great again,” Leavitt said.
It was the second time in less than a month that Trump appeared to wage this very vocal battle during a White House event. The last one came on November 6, in the Oval Office. Afterward, the Washington Post analyzed multiple video streams and calculated that Trump spent nearly 20 minutes fighting to keep his eyes open.
Footage of Trump inheriting during that event — images even sharper than Tuesday’s because of the camera angles available in the Oval — soon went viral.
The point is not that a 79-year-old man dozing off is a sign of a serious health problem or even that remarkable. As Leavitt noted, Trump took a series of questions after Rubio spoke. And it is undeniable that he has made himself much more available to the media than his predecessor. He also appeared to have a late night and early morning ahead of the Cabinet meeting, posting on Truth Social before 5:30 a.m. after sharing posts about immigration, Venezuela and other topics close to midnight. (Indeed, he posted many dozens of times the night before.)
But these types of scenes are clearly becoming more prevalent.
And as is often the case, Trump fell victim to the standards he set for the presidency. Not only did he repeatedly label Biden “Sleepy Joe” because of Biden’s lack of activity; often raged on Biden to literally sleep – and asleep in the room.
Trump portrayed such a scene as unbecoming of a president and a sign of Biden’s disengagement, at least when the shoe was on the other foot.
In 2021, after Biden appeared to fall asleep at a climate conference in Scotland, Trump said in an email: “No one who has passion and belief in a subject will ever fall asleep!”
Trump continued to criticize Biden on the issue in 2022 and 2023.
After Biden’s vibrant State of the Union at the start of 2024, Trump said that “most of the time, he seems to be asleep.”
In June 2024, shortly before Biden’s disastrous debate performance, Trump ridiculed the then-president for appearing sleepy after foreign trips, saying, “He falls asleep at every event.”
By the end of the 2024 campaign, Trump had repeatedly brought Biden asleep on the beach. Trump seemed to find this particularly inappropriate and bizarre.
“How do you sleep when the cameras are raging, right?” he said sometime in September 2024.
He told podcast host Andrew Schulz that same month: “You’ll never see me sleeping on camera.”
If falling asleep in meetings was a sign that Biden lacked “enthusiasm and belief,” why wouldn’t the same standard apply to Trump?
Of course, when it comes to health questions, context is key. There is no doubt that Biden presented himself as much older than Trump and that those around Biden hid his deterioration. Biden has not kept anything close to the schedule or public presence that Trump does today, even as Trump’s domestic appearances and travel, as the Times noted, have declined. (However, his foreign travels have increased so far this term.)
But Trump has long been opaque about his health, including releasing hyperbolic letters from his doctors and resisting full disclosure about his medical visits as president — including a recent MRI. (The White House this week finally released a summary of the October medical imaging of his cardiovascular and abdominal systems — after the president claimed he didn’t even know on which part of his body it was performed.)
During Trump’s first term, Dr. Harold Bornstein, who wrote a glowing letter about his health in 2015, said Trump “dictated the entire letter.” The letter implausibly claimed that Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” despite being nearly 70 years old at the time and famous for his physical exertion.
Such things will raise suspicions and legitimize investigations like the Times’, especially when the president is showing more signs of age.
Just as calling someone “Sleepy Joe” to the point of insanity will make it more noticeable when Trump can’t seem to shake his own sleepiness.
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