(Dobbs) The Nodfather

What if Joe Biden was sleeping in his chair in the Oval Office?

If what happened in the Oval Office last Thursday wasn’t so funny, I might actually come to the defense of Donald Trump. I might say, “So he fell asleep in the middle of a presentation about healthcare. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? A speaker droning on, the mid-afternoon blues, a short night’s sleep?”

But what happened in the Oval Office was funny, because when his Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy was speaking, then his administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Mehmet Oz, then his surgeon general, President Trump started counting sheep.

Which prompted all kinds of acerbic online posts. Someone coined the name “Don Snoreleone.” Someone else mocked him and his rhetorical style on Facebook: “He is the best sleeper ever....no one sleeps better than him!” California’s governor Gavin Newsom jumped on the bandwagon with a series of pictures of a sleeping Donald Trump— and not just in the Oval Office— over the words, “The Nodfather.”

President Biden’s former press secretary Jen Psaki now has a show on MSNBC and her take was, “I mean, that was him in the White House today, basically appearing to nod off while his surgeon general talked about, of all things, really, dementia, obesity and sleep loss. I mean, it kind of feels a little too on the nose, doesn’t it?”

Is that snarky? Sure. But heaven knows, merely being “snarky” is Trump on a good day. He deserves all the ridicule he gets.

To be fair, falling asleep in the wrong place at the wrong time is no surprise. When you’re the biggest fish in the fishbowl, all eyes are on you and all ears are attentive to your every word. I’ve covered presidents and have seen, that is exhausting in itself. And the man never stops moving. In mid-October he made a whirlwind trip to Israel and Egypt, then in late October, Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan, returning to Mar-a-Lago before flying back to Washington until flying to Miami and back three days later for a speech. So it’s no wonder that the day after that, sitting behind the Resolute Desk, with TV cameras right there in front of him, the president fell asleep.

The Washington Post went to the trouble of analyzing twenty different video feeds from the event, and what it reported was, “Trump spent nearly 20 minutes battling to keep his eyes open.” He “displayed a constellation of movements familiar to anyone who has attempted to stay awake during a work meeting. He closed his eyes. He put his hand to his temple. He slouched in his chair.”

Of course if I had to listen to RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz drone on about healthcare, I’d probably fall asleep too.

But predictably, the publicity machine for Superman says he didn’t. A White House spokesperson’s very words were, “The President was not sleeping,” which is part of what makes pronouncements from this White House so hard to swallow. It’s kind of like saying, “Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?”

I’m gonna believe my lyin’ eyes. The pictures are all over Facebook and other social media. News media too.

And trust me, these are not “official White House photos.” They couldn’t be. They contradict the official party line about an indefatigable president. Attorney General Pam Bondi recently said on a podcast, “I don’t know how he does it. None of us know when he sleeps. He’s working all the time.”

Well, Madam Attorney General, now we do know. He sleeps at the office.

Vice President Vance added to the lore of an inexhaustible leader when he told Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara on her podcast, “Sometimes the president will call you at 12:30 or 2 in the morning. Then he’ll call you at 6 in the morning about a totally different topic. It’s like, ‘Mr. President, did you go to sleep last night?’”

Now we have our answer. He waits til daytime.

White House hatchet man Stephen Miller’s wife Katie, who started out in the administration as spokesperson for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, appeared with Laura Ingraham on Fox and flatly said, “The president doesn’t sleep.”

Maybe Trump’s worshipers ought to take half-seriously an analysis in the comments section of The Daily Beast: “So strange how the regime staff keeps hyping how DonOld doesn’t sleep. Not sleeping is a negative trait. Sleep is critical to refresh the brain and body. Not sleeping can limit brain function and lead to physical health problems. Can’t they see this connection?”

In a word, nope.

Donald Trump is the third U.S. president born in 1946, and now, at the start of his second term, he is 79. Bill Clinton was born in ’46, but when he started his second term, he was only 50. George W. Bush also was born in ’46, but he was just 58 at the start of his second term. Trump is 79. 79 is old. Your stamina is tested, your energy is taxed. I know. I’m 79 too.

Some will say all the attention in the media to Trump’s power nap at the office is making a mountain out of a molehill. But here’s why it’s not. Of all the disrespectful and demeaning names he spits out about his political enemies, he says none more often than “Sleepy Joe Biden.” Even on Friday, the day after he slept at his desk, he was back at it, saying while commenting on the “affordability” issue, “It’s far less expensive under Trump than it was under Sleepy Joe Biden.” By the way, it’s not.

As Biden’s domestic policy aide Neera Tanden posted on X, “I’m sorry but the national media would have had multiple strokes if Joe Biden was sleeping/passed out in his chair in the Oval Office.”

Truer words were never written.

So pull out whatever cliches you like: “Turnabout is fair play,” “People in glass houses,” or “Trump made his bed, now he has to lie in it.”

Maybe that’s the problem. Between his late-night calls to aides and his overnight posts on social media, maybe he just doesn’t lie in bed long enough. He assured us late last month that his recent MRI was “perfect,” (whatever that means). Maybe what he really needed was a sleep test.

Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 39-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.

You can learn more at GregDobbs.net