Imagine if Joe Biden did this
Trump's courtroom naps really should be a bigger deal.
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Donald Trump can’t stay awake in court. He’s currently on trial in New York for the Stormy Daniels hush money case — the actual election interference — and if convicted, he could face prison time. The proceedings should demand his complete attention, but he’s nodding off like he’s listening to a friend’s tedious poetry reading.
Maggie Haberman at the New York Times reported last Monday, on the first day of Trump’s trial, that the former president “appeared to nod off a few times, his mouth going slack and his head drooping onto his chest.” It wasn’t a fluke event. Haberman noted that Trump also fell asleep “several times” last Friday. His head dropped twice and his eyes were “closed for extended periods.” It was as if her beat had devolved into daycare nap monitor.
Trump struggled to stay awake this Monday as well, according to New York Times reporter Susanne Craig.
“His eyes were closed for a short period. He was jolted awake when Todd Blanche, his lawyer, nudged him while sliding a note in front of him,” Craig wrote. This was barely an hour into the day’s proceedings.
Trump seemed to acknowledge the difficulty he’s having staying awake on Tuesday, complaining during one of his courthouse whine sessions that "I'm here in a courtroom sitting up as straight as I can all day long.”
The emperor can’t stay awake
Media outlets have mentioned Trump’s courtroom slumbers as mere color commentary rather than a major story in itself.
Trump turns 78 in June and is running for another presidential term, which would end when he’s 82. His physical fitness and mental alertness are relevant issues. An old man snoozing in court like someone’s grandfather at the end of Thanksgiving dinner directly contradicts the strongman image that Trump and his right-wing media accomplices want to present to voters. That image was always laughable, but it’s rarely been so openly exposed as nonsense.
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When Iran attacked Israel on April 13, Republicans Sens Lindsey Graham and JD Vance claimed that Trump’s powerful leadership would’ve kept Iran and Russia in check. That absurd fantasy doesn’t even hold up against Trump’s own record as president, but it’s further contradicted when he literally can’t stay awake at his own criminal trial.
Trump sleeping in court should amount to more than a brief punchline in the news cycle, but as previously noted in this newsletter, the fact that Trump is always simultaneously trying to battle off multiple scandals prevents a singular narrative from cementing. The criminal trial for a former president who’s also the 2024 GOP presidential nominee is already a history-making event. Trump dozing off can seem beside the point, but in a sane world it would undermine the notion that he has more energy for the presidency than Biden.
When Special Counsel Robert Hur described Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” it sent shockwaves through the media. According to a Popular Information breakdown, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and New York Times collectively published 81 articles over three days about Biden’s age and mental fitness. This was all inspired by Hur’s personal impression from his interviews with Biden. Trump’s siestas on the other hand are in plain view of onlookers in a New York City courtroom.
Most importantly, there were multiple stories after Hur’s report suggesting that Biden should step down and Democrats should run another candidate. The Republican presidential nominee is a criminal defendant in multiple cases and is sleeping through his current trial. Yet there are absolutely no Hail Mary columns fantasizing about how Nikki Haley or Larry Hogan should replace Trump at the Republican National Convention.
In February, the Times ran the farcical piece, “Why the Age Issue Is Hurting Biden So Much More Than Trump,” which implausibly argued that Trump “does not appear to be suffering the effects of time” as visibly as Biden. Reporter Rebecca Davis O’Brien gushed, “[Trump] is heavyset and tall, and he uses his physicality to project strength in front of crowds. When he takes the stage at rallies, he basks in adulation for several minutes, dancing to an opening song, and then holds forth in speeches replete with macho rhetoric and bombast that typically last well over an hour, a display of stamina.”
This much-vaunted “stamina” is not evident in the courtroom. Trump’s snoring sessions also draw into question his complaints that he’d be out campaigning but for the trial. During a Monday Fox News appearance that Trump amplified on Truth Social, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum claimed, “[Without] the sham trial, he'd be out doing two rallies a day ... it is absolutely election interference and it is so unfair to the public and to our country.”
Sure, Trump likes talking or “truthing” on his social media site about how easily he’d fix every problem America’s facing (as if he hadn’t been president already). Maybe he’s literally dreaming up solutions to inflation, the border crisis, and unrest in the Middle East, but he doesn’t have much to offer along those lines when we wakes up.
Voters somehow believe Sleepy Don is more vigorous than Biden
Last August, Fox News propagandist Sean Hannity helped spread the false claim that Biden had fallen asleep during a memorial for Maui wildfire victims.
Hannity shared a lower-resolution video of Biden on social media that was quickly viewed hundreds of thousands of times, but another high-resolution clip clearly showed Biden with his eyes open. Texas Rep. Troy Nehls also shared the low-res video on social media, with Nehls’s spokesperson shamelessly saying, “Everyone with eyes can draw their own conclusion about whether President Biden was nodding off in the video.”
That was a fake scandal, but while Trump’s snoozefests are undeniable, Fox News is predictably silent. The network has even resorted to defending their once-powerful leader as an elderly man with poor body heat regulation. “Trump is trapped in a cold courtroom” was a chyron on the Monday installment of Jesse Watters’s show. (Trump has been complaining about the courtroom’s temperature.)
“You're going to sit him in a chair in freezing temperatures? Four days a week, eight hours a day? That takes a toll,“ Watters said.
Earlier on The Five, Watters questioned whether Trump could even survive the punishing conditions of a New York City courtroom.
“He’s usually golfing and you’re going to put a man who’s almost 80 sitting in a room like this on his butt for all that time? It’s not healthy. He needs sunlight. He needs activity. It’s really cruel and unusual punishment.” (Watch below.)
Suffice it to say these are not the arguments you’d sensibly make for someone you otherwise believe is fit to serve as commander in chief.
Republicans and an enabling media have long attacked “Sleepy” Joe Biden as senile, half dead, and unable to perform his most basic duties. They all but demand impeachment if there are any reasonable accommodations for his age, such as shorter stairs to Air Force One or more comfortable footwear. Even Biden’s use of note cards (with pronunciation guides for reporters’ names) has been framed as an age-related liability rather than evidence he takes his job seriously.
You don’t expect intellectual consistency from far-right partisan hacks, but polling shows that Biden’s overall fitness is a concern for more than just rank-and-file Republican voters. A new NBC news poll shows Trump leading Biden by four points in “having the ability to handle a crisis.” Trump’s up by 11 points in “being competent and effective” and boasts a stunning 19-point lead “in having the necessary mental and physical health to be president.”
These are shocking results that make you feel like you’re taking crazy pills. Democrats have collectively conceded that, yes, Biden’s not young — but neither is Trump, who also happens to be a criminal defendant facing 91 felony charges. Trump’s record as president is one of reckless incompetence, and he’s only grown less stable since losing in 2020. If this is a competition between dueling grandpas, then to the extent that anything matters, the competent, non-criminal one is the only sensible choice.
And it does appear as if the trial is changing the dynamic of the election. CNN pollster Harry Enten disputes the always curious narrative that Trump’s trials actually help him politically. He pointed out this week that Biden has steadily gained ground in the polls since January and that “those paying attention to the trials favor Biden over Trump by a clear margin.”
In The Simpsons episode “The Boy Who Knew Too Much,” Homer has jury duty and wears special glasses with eyes painted on the lenses so no one will notice he’s sleeping during the trial. The joke isn’t that Homer’s old but that he lacks the attention and focus to stay awake in court … or at church, or even a coworker’s funeral. Trump’s courtroom naps highlight both his documented poor attention span and increasing frailty. The average voter doesn’t need to understand the specific legal theory in the Stormy Daniels case to conclude that Trump is unfit to serve a second term. The Biden-Harris HQ social media account has gleefully seized on the “feeble” and “frail” Trump’s complaints about courtroom temperature, as well as Watters’s concern about Trump sitting in a chair.
This is why Trump, when awake, gnashes his teeth and childishly attacks “Maggot Hagerman [sic]” and “the failing New York Times” for reporting on his naps. He realizes that regardless of the outcome, the trial is actively hurting his campaign right now. He’s stuck in a cold courtroom and denied the MAGA cult’s warm embrace. Trump’s cries of “election interference” are technically correct in the sense that an ongoing criminal trial will definitely interfere with an election, but he probably should have avoided committing crimes. I don’t consider that an unreasonable ask for a presidential candidate, but maybe I’m just dreaming.
That’s it for today
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Thanks for reading.
While I don’t put a lot of confidence in polls, I am gobsmacked by the one referred to towards the end of this editorial. That people think that trump would be better in a crisis, that he is more capable to problem solve, and that he is more energetic and alert, just blows my mind. What kind of people draw these conclusions? I think in America today we are seeing a very textbook example of how propaganda works. It is very effective. I don’t watch television, because I don’t have a television, but I read the news clips. I read Public Notice Editorials, I read some of the things from the Washington Post, I follow Reuters and the BBC. I remain amazed at the lack of critical thinking in this country. I overheard an old white haired man at the YMCA gym yesterday, talking to his buddy and his actual words were “all the American people don’t know how good Russia is, if they only knew how good it would be for us to be friends with Russia, then they would wake up.” That is just incredible!
But of course, this is an old white haired man who idolizes the orange menace so no surprise there. I’m a baby boomer, I’m 73 and I am keenly aware that my generation is responsible for a great deal of the mess we’re in today. I only wish I knew earlier what I know now. I can only say that I am so very sorry for my lack of awareness and my contribution to, the chaos and wreckage of today’s political system. I am doing my best now, voting Democrat, helping to campaign, pushing back against irresponsible statements, and ridiculous opinions expressed sometimes in groups when I’m having conversations. Because I am a senior fitness instructor and fairly well liked, I am able to participate in these discussions without making people upset because I don’t insist that they’re wrong. I just point out the facts to them. It seems to be a constant uphill battle. Vote BLUE!
Joe Biden posts his annual physical report for all to see:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Health-Summary-2.28.pdf
It even includes his social history: “The president has been happily married for 46 years. He does not use any tobacco products, does not drink any alcohol, and he continues to work out at least five days a week.”
The report leaves nothing to hide.
While the report does not mention that he is a devout Christian, somehow that never comes up as a comparison to TFG.