The White House came out swinging on Tuesday after images and video from Sen. Lindsey Graham’s funeral appeared to show President Donald Trump nodding off inside Washington National Cathedral, with a spokesman branding anyone who reached that conclusion a “depraved moron.” The 80-year-old president had eulogized the South Carolina Republican, describing him as “a force to be reckoned with,” before his eyelids appeared to grow heavy during the service.
The Tuesday ceremony drew a lineup of administration figures, including Vice President JD Vance, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Eric Trump, all seated together as the president delivered his tribute. Yet it was Trump’s demeanor after the eulogy — not the eulogy itself — that quickly dominated the conversation online.
A Blunt Response From the Podium
White House spokesman Davis Ingle pushed back hard on the interpretation, insisting the president was simply lost in thought over losing a close ally. Trump “was reflecting on the loss of his dear friend,” Ingle told HuffPost, before delivering the line that anyone suggesting otherwise “is a depraved moron.”
The clips spread rapidly. One post from the account @HQNewsNow declared that Trump appeared “completely passed out asleep” at the funeral, while another widely shared video from user Aaron Rupar described the president’s face as “drooping heavily” as he struggled to stay awake. An Associated Press photograph from the cathedral captured the president seated alongside Vance, Bessent and Eric Trump during the memorial.
Whatever the explanation, the episode landed against a backdrop the administration has increasingly struggled to control: a growing catalog of moments in which the president has appeared to drift off during official events.
A Pattern the White House Keeps Denying
The funeral was only the latest in a string of such incidents this year. Last month, Trump seemed to fall asleep during an Oval Office event promoting the idea that church and state should not be separate. Weeks earlier, he was seen abruptly opening and closing his eyes during a briefing with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin.
In May, the president appeared to doze during an Oval Office event focused on maternal health, an episode the White House waved away by claiming he was merely “blinking.” And in February, he seemed to nod off at the inaugural gathering of what administration officials termed the Board of Peace, held in the nation’s capital.
The administration’s combative posture toward such observations is not new. On June 4, as Energy Secretary Chris Wright spoke, Trump appeared to slump back in his chair and drift off while announcing his “Trump Promenade,” which would add a concrete patio from the rear of the Lincoln Memorial extending to the Potomac River. After a clip circulated from Kamala Harris’ news account, the administration’s official Rapid Response operation fired back on X, claiming his eyes remained “literally open in the clip you posted.” A report published June 5, 2026, noted that the president’s visible aging had become difficult to explain away, even as officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio have claimed they never see him sleeping.
Sleepy Moments at the Correspondents’ Dinner
The scrutiny intensified days before the funeral. On Friday, Trump headlined a scaled-back White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, where he was seen repeatedly closing his eyes for extended stretches as speeches rolled on inside the Waldorf Astoria ballroom. The venue, formerly Trump International Hotel, replaced the Washington Hilton, which had hosted the event for decades.
That dinner was itself a redo. The April 25 event had to be canceled after 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen breached a security checkpoint and began shooting near the entrance to the ballroom, forcing Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and other officials to shelter alongside roughly 2,500 guests. The July replacement drew 700 people. Melania Trump, who was filmed looking terrified during the April shooting, chose not to attend. Vance, who recently welcomed his fourth child, and Rubio, who had been traveling through Southeast Asia, were also absent.
Despite the roasting — including a video needling him over press freedom and a segment celebrating reporting on a lewd letter he allegedly sent to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — Trump insisted “the show must go on.” He used his own remarks to riff on renaming the event after himself, telling the crowd that CBS News owner David Ellison had informed him the following year’s dinner would carry his name.
He also revived his attacks on CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, calling her “a young attractive woman” who “never smiles” and comparing her appearance to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. He needled Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over beef tenderloin and joked about not wrestling Communications Director Steven Cheung. For now, the White House’s message to skeptics remains unchanged: the president was awake — and doubters are morons.
