White House Account Attacks 4 Million-View 'Sleepy Trump' Clip as Health Scrutiny Deepens
Updated
Updated · The Daily Beast · Jun 5
White House Account Attacks 4 Million-View 'Sleepy Trump' Clip as Health Scrutiny Deepens
3 articles · Updated · The Daily Beast · Jun 5
Summary
A viral post viewed more than 4 million times showed 79-year-old Donald Trump with his eyes closed at an Oval Office coal event, prompting the White House Rapid Response account to answer with insults rather than a formal denial.
The account said Trump's eyes were open in the clip, while spokesperson Davis Ingle called him the most energetic president in history and dismissed the report as a baseless conspiracy theory.
That flare-up followed a Capitol Hill exchange a day earlier, when Rep. Ted Lieu played videos he said showed Trump dozing off and Secretary of State Marco Rubio replied that Trump barely sleeps and calls him at 2 a.m. and 5 a.m.
The administration has spent weeks pushing back on similar videos and broader health questions around Trump's public drowsiness, hand bruising, swollen ankles and visits to Walter Reed.