The White House said Donald Trump was blinking after he appeared to doze off Monday during an Oval Office event on maternal health, a scene that quickly set off a round of partisan ridicule and a fresh debate over the president’s stamina. Trump was seated behind his desk and surrounded by Cabinet members, Alabama Sen. Katie Britt and Dr. Mehmet Oz when he seemed to nod off.
The White House rapid response team responded to a photograph showing Trump with his eyes shut by posting, “He was blinking, you absolute moron.” Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu then shared a video that showed Trump’s eyes closed for 17 continuous seconds and wrote, “Dear @RapidResponse47: That is a verrrrrrrrryyyyy long blink.” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung answered by calling Lieu “a loser of the highest order” and said he needed professional help for “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
The exchange mattered because it landed in the middle of another public test of Trump’s energy. The apparent nod-off came one week after he seemed to have a bout with fatigue during an Oval Office event on the resumption of the Presidential Fitness Test in public schools, and similar episodes were said to have occurred in April, March, February and January. The White House also referred questions about the video to its blinking explanation when asked about the scene.
Trump has long mocked his predecessor as “Sleepy Joe,” but he has denied falling asleep in public and told The that he shuts his eyes occasionally because “It’s very relaxing to me.” He added, “Sometimes they’ll take a picture of me blinking, blinking, and they’ll catch me with the blink.” In an appearance last October, ’s Kaitlan Collins said he does not sleep on trips and that he will wake staff if they are asleep because he wants to talk to them. “He doesn’t sleep on these trips,” Collins said, adding that on travel, such as a trip to Asia, “that’s kind of the only time you’re going to sleep, before you go on this trip, but Trump is just always up and talking, and he’ll like, have them go and wake staff up if they’re asleep because he wants to talk to them.”
What makes this episode hard to brush off is the combination of the video, the repeated denials and the president’s own explanation. A Daily Beast analysis found that in April, Trump’s late-night and early-morning social media habits prevented him from getting a full night of sleep on all but five nights, and Monday’s White House answer did little to quiet the question his critics keep pressing: was he blinking, or was he fading?
