President Donald Trump was apparently caught napping during an Oval Office event on maternal health on Monday, the latest of many such incidents — but the White House tried to save face for him by denying it had happened at all.
"He was blinking, you absolute moron," the White House rapid response X account said in reply to Reuters national security correspondent Idrees Ali, who had flagged an image of Trump, eyes closed.
But commenters on social media weren't having it — with many of them posting lengthy video clips of the same shot that clearly proved Trump had his eyes closed for at least a third of a minute, which would obviously be something more than a blink.
"The White House says this is Donald Trump 'blinking,'" wrote attorney and liberal activist Aaron Parnas.
"The president 'blinked' for nineteen seconds straight," wrote former Democratic Party delegate and religion commentator Christopher Hale.
"Does this look like blinking to you morons?" wrote Democratic influencer Harry Sisson.
"Doctors and health organizations generally recommend that healthy adults get 7 to 9 hours of blinking per night," wrote the official account for the liberal network Meidas Touch.
"He sleeps in every Oval Office meeting. Usually, his sleep mode is triggered when his name isn't mentioned every two or three sentences, but even today he had trouble staying up while Katie Britt was glazing him. Get mad at whoever keeps him up at night," wrote Democratic Party operative Majid Padellan, better known as "Brooklyn Dad Defiant."
"Drooping mouth, closed eyes, and a topic he doesn’t actually care about. TRUMP IS SLEEPING FOR SURE," wrote liberal commentator Brian Krassenstein.