Late night comedy shows cover Trump falling asleep in court while corporate media ignores it!
On Monday, with prosecutors beginning to make their case to the jury that Donald Trump committed 34 felonies, Trump didn’t get angry, animated or antagonistic. Instead, he fell asleep. As NY Times investigative reporter Susanne Craig posted as part of the paper’s live coverage from inside the courtroom, “Trump is struggling to stay awake. His eyes were closed for a short period.” She added, “He was jolted awake when Todd Blanche, his lawyer, nudged him while sliding a note in front of him.”
For those keeping score at home, this marks at least the the third time Trump has fallen asleep in court in the first five days of his trial. Last Monday on the very first day of the case, NY Times’ Maggie Haberman delivered a stunning report from the Manhattan courtroom that Trump “appeared to nod off a few times,” with his mouth “going slack and his head drooping onto his chest.” It happened again on the second day of Trump’s trial.
Late night comedy shows have been having a ball with Trump—now known as “Don Snorleone”—for falling asleep. On Monday night, Jimmy Kimmel responded on his ABC show to Trump dozing off again with a barrage of jokes such as, “The city that never sleeps versus the defendant who keeps nodding off during the trial.” Jon Stewart on The Daily Show chimed in Monday night with his quip about Trump napping in court, “As he should. I mean, he’s been up since 2 a.m. rage tweeting. He needs his anger sleep.” (Last Monday, Stewart covered Trump falling asleep with a great run of jokes, including: “Imagine committing so many crimes, you get bored at your own trial.”)
And last week, Stephen Colbert did a series of very funny jokes on his CBS show after Trump fell asleep the first two days of the trial. A few of Colbert’s quips at Trump’s expense include, “Yesterday, Trump fell asleep. During the proceedings. He took a little white power nap.” Colbert added, “But today he was sharp, focused and…he fell asleep again.” Later Colbert joked, “Well, I think we found the new mascot for Celestial Seasonings: Sleepy crime tea.”
These jokes are actually more important than some may grasp because while not everyone follows politics or Trump’s trial, the audience laughing gets that the soon to be 78-year-old Trump doesn’t have the stamina to stay awake. Obviously, that makes it impossible to serve as President. Also, Trump hates being laughed at so it has to truly upset him to be a punchline on show after show.
But all jokes aside, this is a serious issue that demands media attention. When Trump was in the White House, he didn’t doze off repeatedly at events. What has changed about his health over the past four years? Is it simply he has lost the stamina he once had? Is it a side effect of a medication he’s taking? Does he have a medical condition that he’s concealing? Despite this being a vitally important issue for voters and our nation, the corporate cable news media has barely covered this issue or probed the why causing it. (Print has been better.)
Imagine if President Biden had fallen asleep at public events three times in one week?! It is all we would hear from corporate media. We don’t even have to guess on that point. As the media watchdog group Media Matters noted last June after Biden announced his re-election run, corporate media was quick to cover Biden’s age and stamina issues but not Trump. A Media Matters report at the time noted, “In the week following President Joe Biden's April campaign launch, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC continuously emphasized Biden’s age, mentioning it 588 times, while mentioning former President Donald Trump’s age only 72 times.” While Fox News was of course the worst offender, as Media Matters documented, even MSNBC’s Morning Joe mentioned Biden’s age 35 times compared to only 10 mentions of Trump’s.
This same disparity occurred again in the fall of 2023---as Media Matters detailed--after the release of The Washington Post-ABC News poll that included questions about the age and health of President Joe Biden and Trump. In the four days that followed that poll, “cable news outlets mentioned Biden’s age or health 193 times -- nearly four times as often as Trump’s age or health (56 times).” As you would predict, Fox News was the worst offender but even MSNBC mentioned Biden’s age 77 times in that four-day period to just 31 mentions of Trump’s.
The real-world impact of this media double standard is obvious. We saw an example in Sunday’s NBC News poll that asked voters about whether Biden or Trump have “the necessary mental and physical health to be president.” Only 26% of voters said Biden was “better” in terms of mental and physical health while 45% said Trump would be “better.” In contrast, a month before the 2020 election, NBC News poll found Biden was seen as having the better health and mental sharpness with 41% favoring him to Trump’s 40%. There is a straight line from the corporate media’s horrible coverage of this issue and the findings of these polls.
I’m not sure if the corporate media will ever change when it comes to covering their golden calf Trump who provides them with ratings and revenue. But at this point I will rely on the comedians for political news given they are doing better work than corporate media journalists—and they are making it funny!
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