Trump said he was ‘sharper than I was 25 years ago.’ Then he spent an hour appearing to doze off – again.

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

He later assured that he was “sharper than he was 25 years ago,” as he chided The New York Times last week for a long, detailed story describing how the 79-year-old president is doing. seems to have slowed down in his second term.

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

Trump berated journalists for what he described as unfair treatment when it came to his health and stamina, adding: “You guys are crazy.”

But for the next hour and a half, Trump tried to embody the sharpness and vitality he had just claimed.

In fact, he appeared to be fighting a long and often losing battle with his afternoon nap. He repeatedly appeared to fall asleep, even as his cabinet gathered to sing praises to Trump, one of his favorite activities.

In fact, it was the kind of scene Trump once derided as evidence of a president’s lack of stamina and fitness for the job.

About 15 minutes after his demurrer to the health and resilience reports, Trump appeared to be struggling to keep his eyes open as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick praised trade wars and hailed the “best Cabinet ever for the best president ever.”

Trump’s winks appeared to gradually slow down when he heard from Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner and then Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. The struggle became even more real when he heard from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin.

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. When he spoke, Trump appeared frozen with his eyes closed for 10 to 15 seconds at a time before moving or nodding.

Just before 1:45 p.m. ET, Rubio praised Trump’s efforts to end wars while giving Secretary of State Marco Rubio the same treatment. But this time, Trump’s apparent slumber was more apparent because he was sitting right next to the secretary and the cameras were zoomed in on the two. (Previous speakers were more distant from Trump.)

At the end of Rubio’s monologue, the secretary of state joked about how we are now in “the most wonderful, magical time of the year.” And by that, of course, I mean the College Football Playoff.

If Trump heard the joke, he barely showed it.

When asked about the scene on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump “listened intently and conducted the entire three-hour cabinet meeting.” He praised her for holding nine cabinet meetings this year and for her “exclamation point” response during Q&As when he attacked Democrats and Somali immigrants.

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

This was the second time in less than a month that Trump made this very specific challenge during a White House event. The last one took place in the Oval Office on November 6. After that, the Washington Post examined multiple video streams and calculated what Trump spent. fought to keep his eyes open for almost 20 minutes.

Footage of Trump falling asleep during that event – footage even clearer than Tuesday’s footage due to camera angles at the Oval – it went viral in a short time.

It’s not that a 79-year-old man falling asleep is a sign of a serious health problem or that it’s really anything remarkable. As Leavitt noted, Trump answered a series of questions after Rubio’s speech. And it is indisputable that it managed to get much more press than its predecessor. There also appeared to be late nights and early mornings before the Cabinet meeting; He was posting on Truth Social before 5:30 in the morning, after posting about immigration, Venezuela and other topics around midnight. (In fact, he had posted dozens of times the night before.)

But such scenes are clearly becoming more common.

And as is often the case, Trump fell victim to the standards he set for the presidency. Not only did he repeatedly label Biden “Sleepy Joe” for Biden’s inaction; frequently attacked Biden Because I literally fell asleep – And falling asleep in front of the camera.

Trump staged a scene unbecoming of a president and a sign that Biden was retreating, at least when things went wrong.

In 2021, after Biden appeared to fall asleep at a climate conference in Scotland, Trump said in an email: “No one who has real excitement and belief in a subject can fall asleep!”

Trump continued to criticize Biden on the issue in 2022 and 2023.

After Biden’s energetic State of the Union address at the beginning of 2024, Trump said “it seems like he’s falling asleep a lot of the time.”

In June 2024, shortly before Biden’s disastrous debate performance, Trump mocked the then-president for looking sleepy after a trip abroad, saying, “He falls asleep at every event.”

Towards the end of the 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly mentioned Biden falling asleep on the beach. Trump seemed to find this particularly unseemly and strange.

“How do you fall asleep when the cameras are rolling, right?” He said at some point in September 2024.

That same month, he told podcast host Andrew Schulz: “You’ll never see me sleeping on camera.”

If falling asleep in meetings is a sign that Biden lacks “enthusiasm and conviction,” why shouldn’t the same standard apply to Trump?

Of course, context is very important when it comes to health-related questions. There is no doubt that Biden looks much older than Trump and that those around Biden are hiding his deterioration. Biden hasn’t kept anything approaching the schedule or public presence that Trump does today, even as Trump’s appearances and domestic travel have diminished, as the Times noted. (However, international travel increased during this period.)

But Trump has also been not transparent about his health— including publishing exaggerated letters from his doctors and avoiding full disclosure about his medical visits as president a recent MRI. (The White House this week released a summary of his medical imaging of the cardiovascular and abdominal systems in October, after the president claimed he didn’t even know which part of the body it was done on.)

During Trump’s first term, Dr. Harold Bornstein said of Trump: “he dictated the entire letter.” The letter incredibly claimed that Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” even though he was near 70 at the time and had a reputation for aversion to exercise.

This kind of thing will raise suspicion and legitimize investigations like the Times’, especially when the president shows more signs of age.

Like calling someone “Sleepy Joe” ad nauseam, Trump will make it more obvious when he can’t shake his own sleepiness.

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