Donald Trump’s administration let out a flurry of social media posts targeting CNN and its anchors after the organization’s story about the president’s sleeping habits.
For those who missed it, CNN News Central ran a segment where Dr. Jonathan Reiner ran down the various times Trump has been caught falling asleep in the middle of the day, often being pictured or videoed doing so. Reiner explained to host Kate Bolduan that he was concerned about the fact the president is falling asleep during the day because he’s suffering from insomnia through the nights.
“The president has severe daytime somnolence. He falls asleep very often. He’s fallen asleep in the Oval Office on multiple occasions with people talking to him, in the cabinet room. And there was concern yesterday that he might have fallen asleep at Arlington National Cemetery during Memorial Day observances,” the doctor said. “And chronic insomnia is a severe illness. It can result in an increase in risk of dementia, a decrease in cognitive effects in older people.”
He continued: “It’s equivalent to about increasing your age by about 3 1/2 years. It increases your cardiac risk of having a heart attack or developing congestive heart failure. And it — and it can produce a decline in your sort of mental functions. Like it could increase depression, anxiety.”
As Reiner went on, he emphasized that it is “a real problem,” adding, “The president appears to struggle to stay awake during the day. And I’d like to hear what the White House has done to evaluate why the president has this increased daytime somnolence and what they’re doing to improve that.”
The report led to Rapid Response 47 – which is an official White House account on X – firing off a slew of posts attacking several CNN hosts. Jake Tapper, Dana Bash, Bolduan, Brianna Keilar, Josh Dawsey, Kevin Liptak and more all received a screenshot of them appearing asleep with a variety of cheeky captions to go with it.
“Wow! Kate Bolduan just fell asleep AGAIN as Fake News CNN was baselessly speculating about President Trump’s health,” the account wrote. “Really makes you wonder what these clowns are hiding about their own health.”
“FLASHBACK: FAKE TAPPER APPEARS TO DOZE OFF THROUGHOUT HIS ‘SHOW,’” the account added in another post.
“Is ‘Dr. Jeremy Faust’ sundowning?” they wrote in a third post. You can see additional examples below.
All these posts happened in a less than 30-minute period on Tuesday morning. The latest backlash came right as Trump took his latest trip to Walter Reed Medical Center, which stirred up more concern about the president’s health as he’s a little over two weeks away from his 80th birthday.
