On the afternoon of April 23, 2026, Donald Trump convened an Oval Office event to announce the 17th Most Favored Nation pricing deal with a major pharmaceutical manufacturer — this one with Regeneron. The deal drops the price of Praluent from $537 to $225 on the federally overseen marketplace, and Regeneron announced it would offer its newly FDA-approved gene therapy for a rare inherited hearing loss condition, Otarmeni, free of charge. Regeneron president and chief scientific officer George Yancopoulos, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Director of the Center for Medicare Chris Klomp, and other cabinet and industry representatives were present. Television cameras ran the full event.
On camera, during his own announcement, Trump fell asleep. A widely shared 16-second clip shows Trump with his eyes closed and his head tilted downward as Yancopoulos delivered remarks standing next to him. Other clips show his eyes growing visibly heavy, closing fully, and reopening multiple times. One widely shared post: “Trump is about to hit REM on camera during an Oval Office event.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom posted a series of responses, calling Trump “Dozy Don” and writing “Asleep at the wheel” — a direct inversion of Trump's own 2024 “Sleepy Joe” brand for Biden, which is widely regarded as the most effective insult of that cycle.
The New Republic, which covered the incident, noted it is “the umpteenth time” Trump has dozed off publicly — referencing similar incidents last month during a Cabinet meeting and at a press conference about the Memphis Task Force.
The context matters. Trump is 79. His public schedule has visibly narrowed. On April 19, the Wall Street Journal reported that his aides physically kept him out of the Situation Room during a pilot rescue in Iran because they believed his “impatience wouldn't be helpful.” On April 10, Rep. Jamie Raskin sent a formal letter to White House Physician Dr. Barbabella demanding a cognitive evaluation, setting an April 24 deadline. On April 14, Raskin introduced legislation to create a standing 25th Amendment commission. A public dozing episode during the president's own scripted Oval Office announcement is not a single embarrassing moment. It is a data point that fits an already-documented pattern.