CNN anchor Jake Tapper sits on stage at an event in New York City on May 27, 2025. (Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images)
By Samuel Short December 4, 2025 at 8:03am
The sky must be falling now that a CNN host actually defended President Donald Trump.
Host of “The Lead” Jake Tapper — never one to be accused of being pro-Trump — found himself defending the president’s behavior during his show Tuesday when footage seemed to show Trump nodding off during his final cabinet meeting of the year.
After quoting White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt who remarked on the footage “President Trump was listening attentively and running the entire three-hour marathon cabinet meeting,” Tapper gave his take.
“Now we should say, if he was falling asleep, maybe he was a bit tired from all that time online last night where he was retruthing quite a bit between 7:20 PM and midnight, 158 posts and reposts to be exact ranging from criticism of Democrats to criticisms of immigrants to conspiracy theories from Alex Jones and more and more,” he said.
‘This is not abnormal for a 79-year-old to be sleepy,” Tapper told his panel featuring White House Spokesman Mike Dubke.
“This is not abnormal.” Jake Tapper defends Donald Trump for sleeping during his Cabinet meeting. Maybe instead of defending him, Tapper should write a book on Trump’s physical and cognitive decline. pic.twitter.com/9GF819SdST
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) December 3, 2025
Dubke defended the president, making clear that he was not defending Trump in the manner that former President Joe Biden’s staff would cover for his declining health and low energy.
“This is from my personal experience with the president — he is abnormal in the lack of sleep that he needs… this guy is awake all the time.”
Trump is always active on Truth Social and the reader can scroll through as evidence of what Tapper and Dubke were saying regarding Monday night into Tuesday.
According to the New York Post from Tuesday, Trump has recently been working 12-hour days. A separate report from the Post in February calculated that Biden took more vacation days in office than any other president in history.
According to KEYE-TV, during his first month back, Trump took over 1,000 questions from the press.
Biden took just 141, and former president Barack Obama 161.
That’s not the only way in which Trump’s stamina has stood apart from his predecessors.
In November, U.S. Customs and Border Protection released numbers showing the drastic difference between the president and his predecessor at the border.
Peak border encounters under Biden came in at 370,883. Under Trump for October that number was 30, 73, or 92 percent lower. There were also zero parole releases compared to over ten thousand for Biden.
The comparisons could go on as foreign policy and economic performance are markedly better, but the point stands that the country is moving in a positive direction with a more active president.
Certainly, Trump was not his energized, talkative self in this cabinet meeting. He did look tired and drowsy.
With that in mind, his first year back speaks for itself. Trump’s work ethic can’t be denied, and the results can’t be refuted either.
Tapper is not on the president’s team by any means, but after running damage control for Biden for four years, even he understands that laying into the forty-seventh president now is completely absurd.
Sam Short is an Instructor of History with Motlow State Community College in Smyrna, Tennessee. He holds a BA in History from Middle Tennessee State University and an MA in History from University College London. The views expressed in his articles are his own and do not reflect the views or opinions of Motlow State Community College.
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