President Donald Trump often falls asleep in public. He did it in 2024 during his criminal trial in New York, and he’s done it more recently in cabinet meetings, at White House ceremonies, and elsewhere.
On Wednesday, there was an amusing moment when a cabinet secretary was testifying before Congress and was asked specifically about the nearly 80-year-old president’s tendency to fall asleep when he’s not supposed to.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), a staunch Trump critic, was questioning Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a hearing on Wednesday of the House Foreign Affairs Committee when Rubio was asked, “You’ve been at more than one meeting where President Trump has fallen asleep,” before showing a video of Trump sleeping while Rubio was speaking in a cabinet meeting last December.
After the video was shown, Lieu asked Rubio whether he had been at “more than one meeting where President Trump has fallen asleep.”
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Rubio went on to reply that “that’s false,” and added that “I’ve never seen him fall asleep. On the contrary, the guy doesn’t sleep, which is a big problem ’cause he calls me at two in the morning, he calls me at five in the morning, and you know, I like to sleep a little bit, maybe not 12 hours, but at least six—”
Lieu went on to show another video of Trump sleeping, in another cabinet meeting last month, of Trump “sleeping while you were talking.”
oh my goodness — Ted Lieu played Rubio a video of Trump sleeping while Rubio tried to talk to him during a cabinet meeting. Then this exchange happened:
RUBIO: I’ve never seen him fall asleep
LIEU: I’m gonna show you a video that shows you just lied to Congress
*plays… pic.twitter.com/yccC9GcYoq
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 3, 2026
Lieu put this forward as an example of “a video that shows you just lied to Congress.”
“You are literally talking about issues of war and peace, and Donald Trump is sleeping right next to you. 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,” Lieu said, per the New Republic. “So I’m gonna ask you, have you been at classified meetings where Donald Trump has fallen asleep or had trouble staying awake?”
Could this lead to Rubio being prosecuted for perjuring himself before Congress? That is unlikely, especially under a Trump Justice Department. He would also likely claim that he was not looking at the president while he was speaking in those cabinet meetings.
Regardless, an embarrassing moment for the secretary of state.
Photo courtesy of an X screenshot.
