Donald Trump appeared to nod off during a live Fox News broadcast from Las Vegas, with cameras catching the US president sitting motionless, eyes shut, as his own Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, spoke at a Tax Day campaign roundtable aimed at selling his economic plans.
The Las Vegas event on Friday, 17 April, was staged as a showcase for Trump's promise to make tips tax‑free, a policy he has repeatedly pitched to service‑industry workers as central to his bid to return to the White House and help Republicans in this year's midterm elections.
Trump told the audience a woman working in Las Vegas had inspired the idea, which he claimed was now helping 'thousands of Nevada waiters and waitresses, casino dealers, bartenders, bellmen, barbers, caddies.'
It was not that policy pitch that dominated conversation afterwards, however, but the few quiet moments when the cameras moved away from the lectern and back to Donald Trump. As Bessent praised his boss, social media users clipped a shot of Trump sitting with his head still and his eyes apparently closed, prompting a familiar, and often partisan, round of speculation about his health and stamina.
With the cameras rolling,... Trump falls fast asleep.pic.twitter.com/aK2a5YFK2k
Viewers quickly began dissecting the footage on X. One user wrote: 'TRUMP IS OUT COLD. Scott Bessent does the usual Kim Jong Un type of praise and turns around to see his reaction, 'TRUMP, Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.'
Another commented, 'Trump could care less snoozing away...' A third simply complained, 'All this man does is sleep,' while someone else asked, not entirely seriously, 'Why is this man not required to sleep?'
The clip shows closed eyes in a split‑screen broadcast; viewers infer the rest.
The fuss sits awkwardly against the public image Donald Trump has cultivated for years. He has long insisted he gets by on four to five hours of sleep a night, describing himself as 'not a big sleeper' and folding that into a wider narrative of relentless work, late‑night calls and early‑morning TV watching.
In his telling, he typically heads to bed around midnight or 1am and is back up by 5am to read newspapers and watch cable news. He has repeatedly presented that routine as a marker of drive and efficiency rather than a potential concern. Supporters tend to see it as proof of energy.
Source: International Business Times UK
