Donald Trump’s chief diplomat was mounting a staunch denial of the president’s apparent tendency to nod off in public… and then he was shown the tapes.
Testifying on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was confronted with the harsh reality of footage showing America’s oldest president seemingly dozing off at a Cabinet meeting, just as Rubio was singing his praises over Iran.
The awkward moment took place when Democrat Congressman Ted Lieu asked Rubio if he’d been at “more than one meeting where President Trump has fallen asleep.”
“That’s false. That’s false. I’ve never seen him fall asleep,” Rubio insisted.
“On the contrary, the guy doesn’t sleep, which is a big problem, because he calls me at 2 in the morning, he calls me at 5 in the morning, and you know, I like to sleep a little bit—maybe not 12 hours—but at least six... I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lieu interjected, telling Rubio: “I’m going to show you in a moment a video that shows you just lied to Congress.”
“Oh, okay,” the Secretary of State replied.
The committee was then shown a video from a Cabinet meeting last month, in which Trump could be seen with his eyes closed for an extended period as Rubio gave a monologue about the war in Iran and talked up the president’s leadership.
“You are literally talking about issues of war and peace, and Donald Trump is sleeping right next to you,” Lieu said.
“Now, if Donald Trump cannot stay awake at these important meetings where the cameras are rolling, imagine what he’s like when the cameras are not there. So, I’m going to ask you, have you been to classified meetings where Donald Trump has fallen asleep instead of staying awake?”
Rubio once again insisted he had not seen such a thing and hit out at being asked about the matter when the hearing was meant to focus on his department’s priorities.
“This is a joke,” he said.
But the exchange underlines the difficulty Trump officials face defending a boss whose health has now become the subject of daily speculation.
Trump, who turns 80 on June 14, is the oldest American president to be inaugurated. He spent years mocking his predecessor Joe Biden’s mental and physical health, but now faces many questions about his own ailments, including frequent bruises on his hands, swollen ankles and whether or not he is dozing off on the job.
Asked in January why his eyes were closed during a meeting, Trump replied: “Sometimes they’ll take a picture of me blinking […] They’ll catch me with the blink.” In the same month he said he shut his eyes during a cabinet meeting because of boredom, rather than tiredness.
But even extended absences now spark unverified claims of a potential White House cover-up.
For instance, Trump was last seen playing golf at his club in Virginia on Sunday, and has not had a scheduled public appearance since May 27 when he held a televised Cabinet meeting at the White House.
The absence comes after Trump visited Walter Reed Hospital for another checkup, which he insisted went “perfectly.”
The White House also released a medical report asserting the president was in excellent shape and fit to serve, but it came under fire after doctors found it incomplete and missing crucial details.
“Trump has been missing for 6 days now. He had his 3rd annual physical in 13 months, BURIED the medical report at 11 pm Friday night, and now hasn’t been seen going into a 7th day,” wrote David Pakman, who hosts a show on YouTube called the David Pakman Show. “Just IMAGINE if it were anyone else…”
While Trump has had no public events for days, he has nonetheless issued a barrage of posts on his Truth Social platform. A Daily Beast analysis this week found he made 861 posts last month alone, sharing everything from deranged AI-generated memes to meltdowns over Iran.
He also posts regularly while most people are sleeping, with the Daily Beast calculating that the president posted between 9 pm and 6 am on 25 nights in April—often into the early morning of the next day.
While this supports Rubio’s testimony that the president rarely sleeps, it has also raised concerns about the president’s mental state given the often unhinged nature of the posts.
The White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, however, argued that: “Truth Social has never been hotter, and it’s because President Trump offers his unfiltered and direct thoughts to the American people, without the biased media taking him out of context.”
“The American people have never had a president as transparent as President Trump, who shares his thoughts with them in real time on all the important issues of the day. President Trump is a one-of-a-kind leader who has his finger on the pulse of the people better than any of his predecessors,” she said.
Democrats, on the other hand, remain unconvinced.
“Something is very wrong with the president’s health and cognitive abilities, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it,” Lieu said outside Tuesday’s hearing.
