‘Sleepy Trump’?

What the discourse around the president’s health reveals—and conceals.

Donald Trump has seemed extremely sleepy lately. He appeared to doze in a cabinet meeting, caught forty winks during a meeting in the Oval Office, nodded off at a Memorial Day event, and fell into a light snooze during the NBA finals. Sections of the press have been quick to pounce on these instances; you’ve probably seen the footage from a June 4 event on what is being called “beautiful, clean coal,” as Trump’s posture slumps, his eyelids droop, and he raises his eyebrows in what seems like a strained attempt to stay awake and pay attention. The tone of some coverage has been mocking. (“Sleepy Donald?” asked France 24. “There is a general societal expectation that you look awake during the workday—especially when you’re the president of the United States! Sorry, I don’t make the rules,” wrote Margaret Hartmann of New York.) Other articles about Trump’s health have deployed a grave tone. As Dan Diamond of the Washington Post put it last month, Trump “now receives some of the same questions that dogged” his predecessor, Joe Biden: “namely, whether he is mentally and physically fit to perform the duties of commander in chief.”