‘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.”
Related Knowledge Center: The White House vs. the press
Whether it’s the Des Moines Register’s publication of an unfavorable election poll, a routine edit of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, or the Associated Press’s decision in its authoritative stylebook to continue to use “Gulf of Mexico,” Donald Trump and the White House have used executive authority and legal reprisals in an effort to punish and suppress press coverage that runs contrary to the administration’s preferred narratives.
Democracy and politics | Signalgate | The CBS submission | Voiceless America
Related Knowledge Center: Democracy and politics
News organizations are scrambling to find a coverage approach that adequately informs the American public about the country’s slide from democracy to authoritarian rule.