Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) got into an intense exchange with Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a congressional hearing concerning alleged incidents where President Donald Trump appeared to be falling asleep in Cabinet meetings, interviews, and other public appearances, which Rubio claims is a flat-out lie.
Lieu asked the secretary of state to watch a video clip of the president where he himself was talking and Trump closed his eyes, appearing to fall asleep. The clip was taken from a Cabinet meeting held in December 2025. “Secretary Rubio, have you been at more than one meeting where President Trump has fallen asleep?” Lieu asked Rubio during the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.
Rubio said that claim was false, noting that he’d never witnessed President Trump dozing off during any meetings, going on to praise him for his work ethic and for opting to go without sleep in order to get work done. “I’ve never seen him fall asleep,” he told Lieu. “On the contrary, the guy doesn’t sleep, which is a big problem,” stating that the president will often call him at all hours of the night and early morning.
“Secretary Rubio, I’m going to show you in a moment a video that shows you just lied to Congress,” Lieu said just before asking for the video to be played. The clip shows Trump with his eyes closed while Rubio takes time to discuss the war effort happening in Iran. “You are literally talking about issues of war and peace and Donald Trump is sleeping right next to you,” Lieu said, once again accusing Rubio of lying, according to a report from PBS.
Lieu then said, “If Donald Trump cannot stay awake at these important meetings where the cameras are rolling, imagine what he’s like when the cameras are not there. So I’m going to ask you: Have you been at classified meetings where Donald Trump has fallen asleep, trouble staying awake?” Rubio replied, “I’ve never been in any meeting where, the things you’re showing me now, he’s not falling asleep.”
“So you’re lying again. You’re lying consistently to Congress,”Lieu accused the secretary of state. “You’re lying to Congress, Secretary Rubio. So I’m going to show you another video in a moment. The president’s inability, the president’s inability to stay awake on the job, has caused other countries to perceive him differently. They mock him,” Lieu told Rubio.
“They see he is weak and he is feeble. This is a video of a French news channel talking about Donald Trump falling asleep at a Memorial Day ceremony. Please show this video,” Lieu said during the hearing. The video shows a French news broadcast discussing how the president was allegedly caught asleep during a ceremony to honor veterans, while Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is delivering a speech.
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After the clip, Lieu said, “Donald Trump’s inability to stay awake on the job shows that there’s something very wrong with his health or cognitive abilities, and in fact, on a number of occasions, Donald Trump will contradict himself in literally the same meeting or interview. In this video, I’m about to show it shows that Donald Trump says the Iranian military is both destroyed and not destroyed at the same time. Something that Dina Titus alluded to. Please show this video.”
The clip of Trump’s interview is then played, featuring the president saying, “Of leadership, we’ve actually left their military alone. People would be surprised to hear that, because mistakes have been made in wars where you wipe out everybody, and then you have a country that’s you know for 40 years can never rebuild. You look at what happened with Iraq. We did so. Iran is in a very bad position. They have no military. They all they have is good talk, and they have a fake press.”
Lieu claimed this interview included a contradiction made by the president that allegedly shows he is suffering from cognitive decline. “So, Secretary Rubio, instead of holding North Korean-style cabinet meetings where everyone goes around the room kissing Donald Trump’s a**, I’m going to ask you to come clean with the American people and the White House as well. There’s something wrong with Donald Trump’s health or cognitive abilities,” the Democratic congressman said.
“There’s a reason he keeps going to the hospital, and they keep giving him cognitive tests. We have not seen the president in eight days. The American people deserve the truth. I yield back,” Lieu added. Rubio then gave the perfect response to Lieu and the left’s narrative attempting to show that Trump is not cognitively sound to be the commander-in-chief.
“I don’t even know how to respond to that, other than to tell you that it’s absurd and ridiculous. And I can’t believe we’re in a foreign affairs committee meeting in front of the House, an important time in American foreign policy,” Secretary Rubio said, as Lieu attempted to talk over him and once again accuse him of lying. “Supposedly, someone who thinks he’s a medical expert when he’s not. The truth of the matter is, we had a cognitively impaired president in office a few years ago. That’s a cognitively impaired president, but I don’t like to talk about that because it weakens America.”
“This is a guy that literally doesn’t sleep. He works day and night, long hours every single day. I don’t know if you haven’t seen him in eight days. I saw him yesterday. I didn’t see him today, but yesterday because I was in Congress the day before, I talked to him at all hours of the day and night. He works inhumane hours,” Rubio said in his defense of the president.
“Okay, I’ve been on I’ve been on foreign trips with the president that he doesn’t sleep in the whole flight, and everyone else is sleeping on the plane, and he’s you know wandering in the hallways looking for someone to wake up and talk to, that people are so. I don’t know what you’re referring to, but he has an incredible amount of energy,” he continued, putting Lieu in his place.
“I’m just telling you, you may not like his policies, you may not like his policies, you may not like the decisions he’s made, but I assure you, this is not a president that sleeps or is cognitively impaired in any way, shape, or form, and in fact, is incredibly active, much more so in many cases than much younger people that are around them. Those are facts. I see it every day. You’re not going to agree because you have another narrative that you want to push. But those are the facts,” the secretary of state concluded.