Claim:
Video clips authentically show U.S. President Donald Trump falling asleep during a White House Cabinet meeting on Dec. 2, 2025.
Rating:
A rumor that circulated online in early December 2025 claimed a handful of videos showed U.S. President Donald Trump falling asleep at various moments during a White House Cabinet meeting. That meeting, with the video-recorded portion lasting over two hours, took place on Dec. 2.
For example, one X user’s post (archived) featured a brief clip of Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaking during the meeting, seated directly next to Trump’s right side. The video, also posted on Reddit (archived), showed Trump opening and fully closing his eyes, and displayed the caption, “Trump dozes while Marco Rubio speaks to him directly next to him. Just insane optics.” Other users claimed of the same moment that Trump “fell asleep,” or used the term “doze off.”
The New York Times shared a video on Bluesky, Facebook and TikTok (archived) from a different moment, showing Trump’s eyes opening and slowly closing in a repeated manner — including him nodding to acknowledge remarks — during comments delivered by Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins. The Times reported Trump “appeared to be fighting sleep” while “seeming to nod off.”
Users reposted another video (archived) highlighting numerous moments in which Trump completely closed his eyes. The first part of the poor-quality clip, featuring Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer speaking about “Main Street,” showed Trump’s head slightly dropping in the same manner as when a person begins nodding off. The CNBC YouTube channel hosted a higher-quality video of the same moment, occurring from the 1:15:20 to 1:15:30 marks.
In short, users’ videos truly showed a sleepy Trump during the Cabinet meeting and did not merely show him closing his eyes for quiet reflection or other purposes — as evidenced by the above clips as well as additional footage of him twice yawning (1:34:21-1:34:29) and beginning to fall asleep, including with his head dropping and subsequently coming back up (1:16:07-1:16:30). During the meeting, the drowsy president remained alert to acknowledge speakers’ statements, as well as to call on each prominent person seated in the room.
Snopes contacted the White House via email and asked if Trump repeatedly dozed off during the meeting, as well as if it had a statement to share about this matter. In response, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did not answer the specific question of whether Trump repeatedly dozed off.
Leavitt told us, in part, “President Trump was listening attentively and running the entire three-hour marathon Cabinet meeting.” The video-recorded portion of the meeting lasted around 2 hours and 18 minutes, not three hours. It’s unclear if she was referencing a private part of a Cabinet meeting occurring prior to the video-recorded portion.
Her full statement read as follows:
President Trump was listening attentively and running the entire three-hour marathon Cabinet meeting. Just go back and watch his amazing final answer in the press conference, where he ripped into the America-Last Democrats for allowing radical Somali migrants to invade our country and steal from American taxpayers. This epic moment put an exclamation point on President Trump’s ninth Cabinet meeting of his second term—all of which have been entirely open to the press for the whole world to see. In all of these historic meetings, the President and his incredible team highlight the exhaustive list of accomplishments they have delivered on behalf of the American people to Make America Great Again.
More about the rumor
The CNBC YouTube video, with the camera remaining on Trump the entire time, depicted him opening the meeting by speaking for 32 minutes. Toward the middle of the clip, his appearance and posture displayed signs of him becoming drowsy. That drowsiness continued until he continued speaking to wrap up the meeting.
At the 1:15:38 mark in the video, Trump wipes his left eye with his left hand, then positions his fingers against his left temple, as captured in photos hosted on the Getty Images website, as well as above this article. The aforementioned additional moment showing him beginning to fall asleep, with his head dropping and then coming back up, occurs around 30-60 seconds later between 1:16:07-1:16:30.
Numerous professionally captured still photos also showed Trump’s eyes partially or fully closed at various moments during the meeting. While photographers possibly captured those pictures during moments of blinking or momentary eye-closing, the fact remained that videos depicted a drowsy Trump yawning and numerous times slowly dropping his head to begin falling asleep.
For further reading, we previously reported about other times users falsely, or without presenting credible evidence, alleged videos showed Trump falling asleep, including while attending Pope Francis’ funeral service and during the 2024 Republican National Convention. We also dispelled similar claims regarding videos purportedly depicting former President Joe Biden as dozing off.
