Marco Rubio and Ted Lieu clash over viral Trump 'sleeping' video

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a heated exchange with Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Cal) during his appearance before a congressional committee on Wednesday. Lieu played several clips of President Donald Trump allegedly dozing off during important meetings, asking Rubio to explain the behavior, but the Secretary of State refuted the claims, calling the line of questioning "absurd."

At the start of his questioning during a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting, Lieu played a video from a December Cabinet meeting of President Trump with his eyes closed, while Rubio spoke next to him. "You will see that he is sleeping while you are talking," the Democratic congressman said as Rubio chuckled, saying, "Oh my god," seemingly in disbelief. Following the clip, Rubio dismissed the claim that the President was nodding off, claiming the problem was quite the opposite. "That's false. I've never seen him fall asleep. On the contrary, the guy doesn't sleep. Which is a big problem, because he calls me at 2 in the morning, he calls me at 5 in the morning, and you know, I like to sleep a little bit," he said. 

Lieu kept pressing on the issue as he played another clip of Rubio speaking next to Trump while he had his eyes closed, seemingly for a long time. While the congressman said the clip was from a Cabinet meeting last month, it was from the same December Cabinet meeting, according to USA Today. "You are literally talking about issues of war and peace, and Donald Trump is sleeping right next to you," Lieu said.

Rubio again disputed the allegation, saying the videos don't show the President dozing off. "The President's inability to stay awake on the job has caused other countries to perceive him differently. They mock him," Lieu claimed before playing a clip of a foreign news segment about Trump "fighting sleep" at a Memorial Day ceremony. Lieu told Rubio that the President's public sleeping shows there's "something very wrong" with his health and cognitive abilities, because of which he keeps going to the hospital and keeps taking regular cognitive tests. 

In response, Rubio called Lieu's questioning "absurd," saying there was a "cognitively impaired president" in the White House a few years ago, alluding to former President Joe Biden without saying his name. "This President we have, this is a guy that literally doesn't sleep. He works day and night, long hours, every single day," Rubio said. The exchange ended with the Congressman and the State Secretary speaking over each other, with Lieu saying,  "Just keep lying, Secretary Rubio, just keep lying." 

The scrutiny around whether Trump has dozed off in public comes amid rising concerns about his health as he approaches his 80th birthday this month. Most recently, images and videos of Trump with his eyes closed during an event at the White House. While the official White House Rapid Response account on X dismissed the allegations, claiming the President was only blinking, Lieu at the time slammed the justification, pointing out that it was an unusually long blink. 

Concerns about Trump's health have grown as Trump has taken four medical exams since taking office, while most presidents typically do that once per year. He took a physical exam most recently at the end of May, and the White House released the results of the test with Trump's physician, Sean Barbabella, noting that the President's overall health was "excellent" despite some "slight lower leg swelling" and "benign" hand bruising, Forbes reported.