The president has been caught on camera appearing to nod off during a press conference at the White House.
“DOZY DON IS BACK!” declared Trump’s nemesis, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, in a post on X featuring an image of the 79-year-old slumped in his chair, eyes firmly closed. Newsom, who has made a habit of trolling Trump, also added a video to his post.
The clip is from a live broadcast of the press conference where, at the very moment Dr. Mehmet Oz, talks about people being able to “go to bed,” Trump is filmed counting sheep. The event came after the Trump administration announced it had reached agreements with drugmakers Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to lower the price of some GLP-1 weight loss medications.
MSNBC host and former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki also roasted Trump for his apparent power nap. “I mean, that was him in the White House today, basically appearing to nod off while his surgeon general talked about, of all things, really, dementia, obesity and sleep loss. I mean, it kind of feels a little too on the nose, doesn’t it?” she said on The Briefing with Jen Psaki, sharing the same clip as Newsom.
Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, had been plugging Trump administration reductions in price for weight-loss drugs when the president appeared to begin catching some Zs.
Another notable moment during the press conference came when a man passed out right behind Trump. To his credit, the president did at least stand up when this happened. That’s when press aides ushered the media out, pausing the conference. The White House later reported that the man was “OK.”
It comes as Trump’s Cabinet takes turns to recycle a myth that the president never sleeps. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on The Katie Miller Podcast last month that “none of the White House team can keep up with him.”
“I don’t know how he does it,” Bondi said. “None of us know when he sleeps. He’s working all the time.”
Vice President JD Vance told My View With Lara Trump that Trump “doesn’t have an off switch.”
“Sometimes the president will call you at 12:30 or 2 in the morning,” Vance said. “Then he’ll call you at 6 in the morning about a totally different topic. It’s like, ‘Mr. President, did you go to sleep last night?’”
Even Kid Rock has spoken out about the president’s strange sleep habits. Speaking on Fox News’ The Will Cain Show in May, the singer said he and Trump share a similar sleep pattern: “Like, you know, I’ll talk to him at 2 in the morning and then… he’ll call me at like 5 a.m. and be like, ‘How do you like it?’ I’m like, ‘I’m up. I’m ready to go.’”
More recently, White House deputy press secretary Stephen Miller’s wife corroborated the general take on the president’s sleeplessness. “The president doesn’t sleep,” podcaster and former Trump official Katie Miller told Laura Ingraham on Fox News. “So why does he [Stephen Miller] need to?”
Trump’s untimely nap comes amid a wave of speculation about his health. Recurring hand bruises, cankles, wobbly walks, and mental gaffes have fueled the chatter.
Trump had a physical in October—just a few months after his last annual exam—that included both an MRI and a cognitive test. The White House has not explained why Trump underwent the MRI, a procedure not usually part of a standard checkup.
Psychologist Dr. John Gartner has suggested that Trump’s “major deterioration” in language skills—seen in the president’s rambling speeches and forgetting of basic facts—may be a sign of dementia.
“He used to speak with a high level of vocabulary in very polished paragraphs. Now what we see is not only has his vocabulary gone down, but there are times when he’s really unable to complete a thought,” Gartner told the Daily Beast’s chief creative and content officer, Joanna Coles. “Sometimes he’s unable to complete a word.”
The White House has been contacted for comment.
