The US president was attempting to explain the four countries' economic circumstances and contrast them with the US on immigration.

On Monday, April 15, the first day of the first criminal trial of a former president in American history, the defendant fell asleep. Donald Trump “appeared to nod off a few times, his mouth going slack and his head drooping onto his chest,” Maggie Haberman of The New York Times reported.

It happened again the next day. That Friday, Trump dozed off several times. “His eyes were closed for extended periods and his head dropped down twice,” Haberman noted.

He was no more alert the following Monday. “Trump is struggling to stay awake. His eyes were closed for a short period. He was jolted awake when Todd Blanche, his lawyer, nudged him while sliding a note in front of him,” Susanne Craig reported in the Times.

On Tuesday, April 30, Trump may or may not have been awake; he was sitting with “eyes closed, leaning back in his seat.”

[David A. Graham: Trump’s alternate-reality criminal trial]

Wednesday—yesterday—was a day off for the trial. Trump used the opportunity to post on Truth Social, “Where’s SLEEPY JOE? He’s SLEEPING, that’s where!!!”

Trump’s bouts of drowsiness occupy a strange place in the political news. They began as an object of amusement, good fodder for comedians of the late-night, social-media, and podcast varieties. (“Don Snoreleone” was one memorable coinage; others fittingly compared him to Rip Van Winkle, a lethargic New Yorker who’s stuck in the past and waking up to an unpleasant new reality.) Now, like many of Trump’s strangest behaviors, his impromptu naps threaten to become normal, as though catnapping through a lurid trial is typical. But they shouldn’t be mere comic fodder, nor accepted as normal: They are a worrisome sign about a leading presidential candidate. If Trump can’t manage to stay awake during a trial when his very freedom is on the line, what are the chances that he will be able to focus on the intricacies of a spiraling regional war, a trade policy, or any new crisis that might face him if he returns to the White House?

Trump seems to get that, and appears to be actually a bit embarrassed—unusual for a man who, when caught in what might otherwise be a shameful situation, more commonly acts proud. In this case, though, Trump isn’t insisting that he’s been taking “perfect” naps. Instead, he’s posting about President Joe Biden being the sleepy one. His aides have mostly tried to avoid the topic. Alina Habba, one of Trump’s many lawyers, insisted that he wasn’t sleeping, but added, “He’s probably brutally bored.” This excuse might have been more persuasive if it was just the first day—Mondays are hard on everyone, especially guys with orange hair, and jury selection can be mind-numbing. It’s harder to accept as the sleeping persists while the trial gets into juicy details. But, luckily for Trump, because the trial is not televised, there’s no video. That means Trump avoids clips of him snoozing spreading around, and the reports that do exist come from mainstream journalists whom Trump’s fans aren’t reading and wouldn’t trust anyway.

[David A. Graham: Trump’s West Point stumbles aren’t the problem]

Presumably, if Trump could stop dozing off, he would do so. Can he really not control his urge to sleep? That would be especially notable given that Trump has in the past boasted about not needing much rest, as the journalist Scott Nover points out in Slate. “I’m not a big sleeper, I like three hours, four hours, I toss, I turn, I beep-de-beep, I want to find out what’s going on,” Trump said in 2015. During his term in the White House, he would often tweet at all hours of the night, though the content of those messages frequently suggested that he might have been better off if he’d logged off and dropped off. The Wall Street Journal suggests that without access to Diet Coke—drinks are banned in the courtroom—he is caffeine-deprived, and that guzzling a couple of cans during breaks runs another risk, because bathroom breaks are controlled by the judge.

Trump’s pattern of projection is by now well understood. Throughout this campaign, he and his allies have attacked Joe Biden as a doddering old man who no longer has the energy for the office. Biden doesn’t show the signs of mental decline that Trump suggests, but he is demonstrably more elderly than he was in 2020. Each time Trump falls asleep in court, however, it makes his criticism of Biden’s age seem like another case of projection. Trump’s performance as president during his first term showed that he was not up to the job. His snoozing in court raises the question of whether he can stay up for it, either.

For the past couple of weeks, the vortex of campus politics has threatened to suck Joe Biden in. Protesters at colleges have dubbed the president “Genocide Joe” and demanded that he act to stop Israeli actions in Gaza, while conservatives have sought to blame Biden for disorder at colleges and universities. Even as other Democrats grew nervous about the political ramifications of the protests for the upcoming election, the White House tried to stay out of it, seeing the protests as a distraction. The president has seemed, if not exactly sympathetic to the protesters, not interested in castigating them or really having anything to do with the protests at all.

Today, Biden’s patience ran out. In brief remarks at the White House, he affirmed the importance of free speech but mostly seemed intent on delivering a message of law and order.

“We’ve all seen images, and they put to the test two fundamental American principles. The first is the right to free speech and for people to peacefully assemble and make their voices heard. The second is the rule of law. Both must be upheld. We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent,” Biden said. “But,” he went on, pausing, “neither are we a lawless country. We’re a civil society and order must prevail.”

In doing so, Biden accepted the conservative framing of the protests as fundamentally a problem of discipline. Protesters and their defenders have argued that, despite the fevered tone of some coverage, the demonstrations have largely been without real violence (at least until police arrived). Biden’s remarks indicate that he has become worried that the sense of disorder is catching with the public and thus becoming a liability. Chaos in the streets—real, imagined, or exaggerated—is never to an incumbent’s advantage.

To see the risks, Biden needs only look back four years ago, when Donald Trump’s standing was hurt by massive protests over police violence. Although Biden now finds himself in the same role, advocating for law and order, he does it in a much more conciliatory way. “Throughout our history, we’ve often faced moments like this, because we are a big, diverse, freethinking and freedom-loving nation,” he said. He also said there is no place for anti-Semitism or racism, and said he did not support deploying the National Guard to police protests.

Even in a short speech, however, the tensions within Biden’s approach were apparent. As he accused opportunists of turning up tensions, he said that “this is not a moment for politics,” a Strangelovian paradox when discussing, you know, political protests. He also tried to draw a line between peaceful protest and violent protest, but ended up eliding the difference. Vandalism is violence; disrupting graduation ceremonies, another example he cited, is not.

Biden may have picked his timing well. By speaking now, he doesn’t take responsibility for the sweeps by police that have already occurred. Because classes will soon end at colleges, the protests are likely to peter out, and he can try to claim credit for that. A slow release is probably Biden’s best hope here.

US President Joe Biden spoke about anti-Gaza war protests that have spread across university campuses.