Did Trump fall asleep at an Oval Office meeting?

[0:00] We also have opened up for leasing another 13.1 million acres that people can bid on in our country on public land. [0:09] And this is land that was set aside. This is not national parks. It's not wilderness area. It's not our wildlife refuges. [0:15] This is public land that was set aside for the benefit and use of the American people, including energy development, making sure that we've got affordable, reliable energy. [0:23] I mean, you can sort of see him blink in there, but his eyes are super heavy, appearing to, I don't know, at least begin to maybe not off during an Oval Office meeting yesterday. [0:36] This time, we'll take a look at it again, was Thursday's announcement of new investments in reliable American energy. [0:42] Members of his cabinet stood right next to him, one of them speaking loudly. [0:48] This is a different event. Still, a White House spokesperson is adamant, here's a series of events, really, that the 79-year-old Trump is the sharpest, most accessible and energetic president in American history, telling the Daily Beast that any suggestion otherwise was from lightweight, glue-sniffing reporters, pushing baseless conspiracy theories. [1:08] All right, then. Trump's latest bout with mid-meeting drowsiness came one day after Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied ever seeing the president sleep. He never sees him sleep. [1:18] Have you been at more than one meeting where President Trump has fallen asleep? [1:27] That's false. That's false. I've never seen him fall asleep. 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. [1:36] And, you know, I like to sleep a little bit, maybe not 12 hours, but at least 6. So, he works. The other day, he was at the Oval Office until 12.30 p.m. [1:44] 12.30 a.m. I don't know what you're talking about. [1:47] Secretary Rubio, I'm going to show you in a moment a video that shows you just lied to Congress. [1:52] Oh, okay. [1:53] So, this is a video of a cabinet meeting, literally from last month, where Donald Trump is sleeping while you're talking. [2:01] Please show this video. [2:04] A coalition of countries that line up behind the peace deal, behind the board of peace, and it's still, every day is a challenge, but it's been driven personally by the president. [2:13] It's the reason why we're involved in this whole Ukraine-Russia conflict. That's not our war. It's not the president's war. [2:18] This war started, it never would have happened if you'd been president. But this war is going on, and the president is trying to end it. [2:24] You are literally talking about issues of war and peace, and Donald Trump is sleeping right next to you. [2:31] No, he's not. [2:32] Joining us, senior writer at The Dispatch and MSNOW contributor David Drucker, former advisor to George W. Bush and John McCain, Mark McKinnon. [2:39] Leanne Caldwell is still back with us. [2:42] God, I mean, it's like when we're, my husband and I are in bed at night and we're watching whatever television show, and I'm desperate to stay awake, but I can't. [2:51] And I just, I keep pretending, I keep falling asleep, and then just, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a really, uh-huh. [2:57] I just, over and over again, that's what that looks like to everybody, except apparently, and I think this is the way you have to describe them, Mark, the sycophants that are around him. [3:09] Are you going to believe your lying eyes? [3:10] Yes, or me, or Trump. [3:14] I mean, this just goes to the issue that was debated so much during the election and about Biden. [3:20] In America today, you can't be a commercial pilot or a park ranger if you're 66. [3:27] And we have a president who's 15 years older than that. [3:30] Corporations make CEOs retire at 65. [3:32] There's a reason for that. [3:34] You can't possibly, you may be good, but you're not nearly as good as you were at 65. [3:38] And for the most important in the free world, to have anybody trying to run it at 80, this is what you get. [3:45] Nobody should be surprised. [3:48] I mean, that is just the reality, David. [3:50] You could be the sharpest, most energetic, most awake person, but age will catch up with you. [4:00] Age will tire you out. [4:01] That's a reality of the world we're living in. [4:04] And I am, I'm so disappointed that the people around him can't acknowledge it. [4:11] I'm disappointed that the people in the White House don't see this and say, [4:15] maybe we shouldn't allow him to do these never-ending meetings where the guys behind him right now just, [4:22] I mean, look at how uncomfortable they look. [4:25] No one's listening because they're looking at the president nodding off. [4:28] The irony, Katie, of these never-ending meetings is it's one of the reasons why a lot of people don't think that he's having age issues [4:37] and do think that he's vigorous is because he's constantly in public. [4:41] He's constantly, as Secretary Rubio noted in that clip, calling people in the middle of the night. [4:47] We know that he seems to enjoy posting on Truth Social at length in the middle of the night. [4:53] And it gives a lot of people the impression that the guy, you know, is elderly but energetic. [5:00] And so I'm not arguing against the clips we just saw. [5:02] But, you know, when you talk to people in the country, [5:05] even a lot of the president's critics don't think he's having the same problems as President Joe Biden. [5:09] And the only reason I bring that up is we have a trend of people working for elderly presidents [5:14] who don't want to acknowledge that the president is elderly [5:17] and that it might be impacting, not necessarily performance or policy, but concentration. [5:25] But again, I think Trump's able to deal with this for the time being. [5:29] One, because people have bigger fish to fry with him, the economy, for one, and inflation. [5:34] And number two, he's just constantly in your face. [5:38] And so it doesn't look like he's off taking a nap somewhere, I guess, unless in public. [5:43] So if we're seeing this, if we're watching it, and this is what they're showing us, [5:47] you have to wonder what's happening when we're not watching. [5:51] Just like we wondered with Joe Biden, what's happening when we're not watching? [5:54] And he's having a meeting about national security or a meeting about the war [5:57] or a meeting about the economy, and his advisers are laying out options, [6:01] laying out contingencies, laying out the variables, maybe the variables of what might happen if he [6:08] goes to war with Iran. And I don't know whether the Strait of Hormuz will get disrupted or potentially [6:14] blocked, not blockaded, but held hostage by the Iranians. Was he awake during those meetings, [6:19] Leanne? Did he hear those concerns? Or are we in this war? Because he happened to be dozing off [6:26] as his advisers and his officials. We're giving him all of the possibilities. We're laying out [6:32] the menu. I know you can't answer that, but that's got to be something that people on Capitol Hill [6:38] are wondering and might be concerned about. Or maybe you tell me, are you not hearing about that [6:44] concern? You know, not really. I do hear. I have heard Republicans say that he is sometimes looking [6:53] older, and it looks like he is aging when they're in front of him. But what I also hear is a lot more [7:03] concerns, as David was saying, about the economy and the midterms and the fact that they can't get [7:11] the president, whether he's dozing off or not, to focus on the issues that will help them win. [7:19] You know, this is a much more tightly run White House than Trump 1.0. And so the leaks are a lot [7:27] less. The team inside the White House is much more unified. So even if he was falling asleep in [7:34] these national security meetings or unable to be engaged, we haven't heard it yet. And there has not [7:43] been any official complaints. We see what is happening in the public in these long, drawn-out [7:50] meetings where he does seem to be dozing off. But when I do talk to members on Capitol Hill, they're [7:56] much more concerned with their own jobs and their own re-elections and wish that the president would [8:04] get focused on the things that they think will help them actually win, rather than all of the other [8:12] things that he's obsessed with. I think it is an absolutely fair thing to wonder about how awake [8:16] he is in these private meetings, especially if they're so comfortable showing how not quite awake [8:21] he is in these public meetings. There's some reporting from publiccitizens.org on the ballroom [8:28] donors, David. I wonder if anybody's concerned about this. 14 of the 27 donors who have contributed [8:38] money to the president's ballroom have received new or increased government contracts over the last [8:45] six months, totaling $50 billion. Sounds like pay to play. Am I wrong about that? [8:52] It sure sounds like it. So you may be technically wrong, but not wrong in the aggregate here. Look, [9:00] first of all, if you're one of the companies that gave, at least if the ballroom was being built [9:06] with your money, you can deflect from pay to play allegations by saying, look, I helped build the [9:12] United States a brand new presidential ballroom. Now that the president wants $1.8 billion for the [9:17] ballroom, it's unclear what that money was for, except maybe some of these other things. [9:22] I think part of this, and I always get back to this, is that this is the sort of thing that, one, [9:28] people assume is true about Washington, even when it isn't, or even when it may be true, [9:33] but at a much lesser scale than it appears to be now. And when they're so concerned with so many [9:41] other things that are pressing, like whether they can pay their bills and how far their dollar is [9:47] going to stretch next week, it's hard to get exercised about this. But it is the kind of thing [9:51] that voters will get exercised because it goes to the fact that you're not taking care of the most [9:57] important thing, but you sure have plenty of time for this other thing that's also wrong. [10:03] And so it becomes a death by a thousand cuts. But, you know, without a functional Congress where we [10:09] can depend on both parties in Congress to investigate presidents of their party, and in this case, it's on [10:15] the Republicans to investigate Trump, you're just not going to see, you know, much done about this in [10:21] Washington. And the president has a free hand to do this.