The Daily Populous Wednesday December 3rd, 2025 day edition
Authored by cnn.com and submitted by horsestew

At the start of a Cabinet meeting just after noon ET on Tuesday, President Donald Trump made his seemingly obligatory reference to “Sleepy Joe” Biden.

Then he assured he was “sharper than I was 25 years ago,” while rebuking The New York Times for a lengthy and detailed story last week laying out how the 79-year-old president appears to have slowed down during his second term.

“Trump is sharp, but they’re not sharp,” Trump said of the newspaper.

Trump chastised reporters for what he cast as unfair treatment when it comes to his health and stamina, adding, “You people are crazy.”

But over the next hour and a half, Trump struggled to embody the sharpness and vigor he had just laid claim to.

In fact, he seemed to wage a lengthy and often-losing battle with a midday nap. Even as his Cabinet was assembled to engage in one of his favorite activities – singing the praises of Trump – he repeatedly appeared to doze off.

It was the kind of scene, in fact, that Trump once upon a time ridiculed as evidence of a president’s lack of stamina and fitness for the job.

About 15 minutes after his broadside against the health and stamina reporting, Trump seemed to struggle to keep his eyes open as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick praised his trade wars and hailed “the greatest Cabinet ever for the greatest president ever.”

Trump appears to close his eyes as Lutnick speaks 0:09 • Source: CNN Trump appears to close his eyes as Lutnick speaks 0:09

Trump’s blinks appeared to get progressively slower as he heard from Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner and then from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. The struggle grew even more real when he heard from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin.

Trump's eyes grow heavy as Bessent speaks 0:11 • Source: CNN Trump's eyes grow heavy as Bessent speaks 0:11

By the time Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke, Trump appeared frozen with his eyes closed for 10 to 15 seconds at a time, before ultimately moving his eyes or giving a nod.

Trump closes his eyes at times during Kennedy's remarks 0:48 • Source: CNN Trump closes his eyes at times during Kennedy's remarks 0:48

Just before 1:45 p.m. ET, he gave Secretary of State Marco Rubio the same treatment, as Rubio extolled Trump’s efforts to end wars. Except this time Trump’s apparent dozing was more pronounced because he was seated right next to the secretary, and the cameras were zoomed in on the two of them. (Previous speakers had been more distant from Trump.)

At the end of Rubio’s monologue, the secretary of state cracked a joke about how we’re now upon “the most wonderful, magical time of the year. And by that, of course, I’m referring to the College Football Playoff.”

If Trump heard the joke, he barely showed it.

Trump seems to doze off during Rubio's remarks 0:26 • Source: CNN Trump seems to doze off during Rubio's remarks 0:26

Asked about the scene on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt maintained Trump had been “listening attentively and running the entire three-hour marathon Cabinet meeting.” She praised him for holding nine Cabinet meetings this year and for an “exclamation point” answer during a Q&A when he attacked Democrats and Somali immigrants.

“In all of these historic meetings, the president and his incredible team highlight the exhaustive list of accomplishments they have delivered on behalf of the American people to Make America Great Again,” Leavitt said.

It was the second time in less than a month that Trump seemed to wage this very pronounced battle during a White House event. The last came on November 6, in the Oval Office. After that one, the Washington Post reviewed multiple video feeds and calculated that Trump had spent almost 20 minutes fighting to keep his eyes open.

Images of Trump dozing off during that event – images even clearer than ones Tuesday because of the camera angles available in the Oval – soon went viral.

The point is not that a 79-year-old man dozing off is a sign of a serious health concern or even really all that remarkable. As Leavitt noted, Trump did take a series of questions after Rubio spoke. And it’s indisputable that he’s made himself much more available to the press than his predecessor. He also seemed to have a late night and early morning ahead of the Cabinet meeting, posting on Truth Social before 5:30 a.m. after sharing posts on immigration, Venezuela and other topics close to midnight. (Indeed, he had posted many dozens of times the night before.)

But these kinds of scenes are clearly becoming more prevalent.

And as is often the case, Trump has rendered himself a victim of the standards he has set for the presidency. Not only did he repeatedly label Biden “Sleepy Joe” because of Biden’s lack of activity; he often ragged on Biden for literally sleeping – and falling asleep on camera.

Trump cast such a scene as unbecoming of a president and a sign of Biden’s disengagement, at least when the shoe was on the other foot.

In 2021, after Biden appeared to fall sleep at a climate conference in Scotland, Trump said in an email: “Nobody that has true enthusiasm and belief in a subject will ever fall asleep!”

Trump continued criticizing Biden on the subject in 2022 and 2023.

After Biden’s vibrant State of the Union in early 2024, Trump said that “most of the time, he looks like he’s falling asleep.”

In June 2024, soon before Biden’s disastrous debate performance, Trump ridiculed the then-president for appearing sleepy after overseas travel, saying, “He falls asleep at every single event.”

By late in the 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly brought up Biden falling asleep on the beach. Trump seemed to regard this as particularly unseemly and bizarre.

“How do you fall asleep when cameras are raging, right?” he said at one point in September 2024.

He told podcast host Andrew Schulz the same month: “You’ll never see me sleeping in front of the camera.”

If falling asleep in meetings was a sign that Biden lacked “enthusiasm and belief,” why wouldn’t the same standard apply to Trump?

Of course, when it comes to health questions, context is key. There is no question that Biden presented as much more elderly than Trump does, and that those around Biden obscured his deterioration. Biden didn’t keep anything approaching the schedule or public presence Trump does today, even as Trump’s appearances and domestic travel, as the Times noted, have declined. (His foreign travel, however, has increased so far this term.)

But Trump has also long been opaque about his health, including by releasing hyperbolic letters from his doctors and resisting full disclosure about his medical visits as president – including a recent MRI. (The White House this week did ultimately release a summary of his October medical imaging of his cardiovascular and abdominal systems – after the president claimed he didn’t even know what body part it had been conducted on.)

During Trump’s first term, Dr. Harold Bornstein, who’d written a glowing letter about his health in 2015, said that Trump had “dictated that whole letter.” The letter had implausibly claimed Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” despite his being close to 70 years old at the time and famously averse to exercise.

Those kinds of things are going to seed suspicions and legitimize investigations like the Times’, especially when the president shows more signs of age.

Just like calling someone “Sleepy Joe” ad nauseam is going to make it more noticeable when Trump can’t seem to shake his own sleepiness.

judahjsn on December 3rd, 2025 at 03:12 UTC »

He’s taking this whole anti-woke thing too far

PoetryJunior1808 on December 3rd, 2025 at 02:37 UTC »

I know it's a high school stunt, but can someone steal his Sharpie and draw a few dicks on his face while he's nodding off?

Chucky_In_The_Attic on December 3rd, 2025 at 02:28 UTC »

Donald Trump, 79, is a racist sexual predator. He is a lying piece of scum. An inept yet somehow fails UPWARDS president.

He's an absolute piece of trash, he'd sooner have a private weekend get away with your 14 year old daughter than do anything for the country.

He isn't fighting for you, your neighbor, friends or family.

He's a deranged old man that the MAGAt cult, for some crazy reason, feels they need to defend.