Presidents asleep in meetings is an exchange from January 2026, occasioned by reports that Donald Trump had napped through a cabinet meeting he afterwards described as boring.[1]
The question
A viewer asked Kiriakou to name the highest-profile person he had ever seen fall asleep in a meeting. He repeated the question back, paused, and answered: “George HW Bush.”[2]
The explanation
He declined to treat it as a scandal. Presidents fall asleep at meetings all the time, he said, because the demands on their time are so incredible that there simply are not enough hours in the day.[2][3]
He then made an exception for the incumbent, who “has made it kind of a nine-to-five job” — and used that to recall a precedent. Ronald Reagan had what was called the nine-to-five presidency, which was scandalous at the time: the president was going to be president from nine to five and then that was the end of the day.[3]
Kiriakou’s verdict on the arrangement is favourable, with one condition attached: “it worked just fine. If you surround yourself with people who are going to, you know, do what you hire them to do, whether or not we agree, um, then you can have a nine-to-five presidency.”[3]
The corroboration
Rall’s contribution came from inside the room. His father had sat in a good many cabinet meetings and reported that Reagan loved to sleep through them, all the time; Kiriakou confirmed that Reagan was famous for it.[4]
Both men also thought the story about Trump had been reported for the wrong reason. What Kiriakou found funniest in the account was not the nap but a detail about the commerce secretary, who was said to laugh more loudly than any other cabinet member when the president makes a joke.[1][5]