President Donald Trump appeared unable to keep his eyes open as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other top officials spoke at his press conference on Monday.
Trump, 79, was seen with his eyes repeatedly fluttering shut, and swaying back and forth as others stepped up to the microphone to speak in the White House briefing room.
It’s the latest in a series of public events in which the president has been caught with his eyes shut on camera.
The president only kept his eyes fully open when he was the one speaking at the podium, where he went on a series of rants while defending the war in Iran and took multiple questions.
One of the three officials Trump was seen nodding off alongside was Hegseth, who gave a religious sermon-style speech when it was his turn to speak.
“Shot down on a Friday, Good Friday, hidden in a cave, a crevice all of Saturday, and rescued on Sunday, flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday,” Hegseth declared. “A pilot reborn, all home and accounted for, a nation rejoicing. God is good.”
As he continued, Trump stood to his right, swaying silently. When he went on to lavish praise on the president, Trump continued to stand there with his eyes closed.
“Make no mistake about it. None of this would have been possible without the courageous leadership and ironclad determination of President Donald J. Trump,” Hegseth said, gesturing to the president, feet away.
Despite being acknowledged by name, Trump barely stirred, fluttering his eyes a moment before closing them again.
The president also kept his eyes closed through the remarks by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, as they shared details on the heroic rescue of the downed U.S. airman from Iran over the weekend.
The president’s apparent struggle to stay awake in public has raised concerns about his health. He is the oldest person ever elected president.
He is also prone to posting on social media at all hours of the night and has acknowledged he doesn’t sleep much at night, only to be caught appearing to snooze during the day.
But Trump has repeatedly insisted, when caught with his eyes closed in public, that he has simply been resting his eyes.
After it happened during his Cabinet meeting at the end of last year, the president claimed he was caught blinking, even though it was captured on camera. The president also argued he shut his eyes because he was simply bored.
The president was also spotted on Monday with makeup covering his bruised hand once again. The White House has repeatedly claimed since last summer that his hand bruising is caused by excessive handshaking while taking aspirin.
But that does not explain why it has appeared occasionally on his left hand as well, or why he has at times even covered it with band-aids.
