President Donald Trump closed his eyes for extended periods as Cabinet officials went around the room Tuesday providing updates on their work, at times seeming to nod off.
It was the second time in less than a month that Trump has appeared to struggle to stay awake as his advisers speak about the administration’s initiatives. A Washington Post analysis of multiple video feeds of the meeting Tuesday showed that during nine separate instances, Trump’s eyes were closed for extended periods or he appeared to struggle to keep them open, amounting cumulatively to nearly six minutes. The episode was similar to an Oval Office event on Nov. 6 when the president spent nearly 20 minutes battling to keep his eyes open.
Trump’s apparent drowsiness during the 2-hour, 17-minute gathering with his Cabinet followed pronouncements in recent days by the 79-year-old president, his advisers and his doctor that he is in excellent health and full of stamina — an assertion the president repeated early in Tuesday’s meeting.
“Right now, I think I’m sharper than I was 25 years ago,” Trump said, criticizing a recent New York Times article that said the president was facing the realities of aging. He later resurrected a frequent insult, “Sleepy Joe,” to mock former president Joe Biden, the first octogenarian to serve as president, who faced regular scrutiny for his perceived lack of stamina.
In response to a request for comment about Trump’s eyes being closed during the meeting, a White House official initially told The Post that he was not sleeping, though a subsequent statement from press secretary Karoline Leavitt did not specifically address whether the president had dozed off.
Leavitt instead said he was “listening attentively and running the entire” meeting, and cited Trump’s “amazing final answer in the press conference,” in which he bashed Somali migrants, calling it an “epic moment.”
The White House has worked to refute suggestions that Trump has slowed down since his first term eight years ago. His advisers on Monday provided private logs to the New York Post that they said revealed Trump “working up to 12-hour days” on several instances during the past few weeks, the outlet reported.
But on Tuesday, the president appeared sleepy. Throughout Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s discussion of “the most transformational year in American foreign policy since the end of the Second World War — at least,” Trump leaned his head forward and shut his eyes. They remained closed even as Rubio discussed one of the president’s favorite topics, his efforts to broker peace between warring foreign nations.
Trump appeared far more alert later Tuesday when announcing “Trump accounts,” new tax-advantaged investment accounts for children. Unlike the meeting that had ended an hour earlier, where Trump was seated as he appeared to battle sleep, the president, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other officials were standing during the 40-minute announcement.
“I don’t think [Trump] sleeps at all,” Cruz said at one point.
While Trump’s Oval Office drowsiness last month came a week after he returned from a trip to Asia — a journey known for causing jet lag — the episode Tuesday followed a late night and early morning of the president scrolling and posting on social media.
Between 10 p.m. Monday and midnight, Trump made nearly 150 posts and reposts on his Truth Social account, ranging from criticisms of Democrats and screenshots of posts from right-wing conspiracy theorists to positive video clips about himself and first lady Melania Trump. Despite being a prolific and longtime user of social media, Trump’s blitz of posts that night was far more than is typical for him, though Trump’s advisers have told The Post he frequently only gets about four hours of sleep a night.
By 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, the president was back to posting again online.
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