What did Donald Trump do today?

He had a nap on live TV, for all the good it did him.

According to his official schedule, Trump "participated in a Health Care Affordability event" at 3:00 this afternoon. This is a rare example of Trump actually complying with a health care law passed by Democrats during the Biden administration, which requires the White House to negotiate bulk prices for drugs purchased by Medicare. (Trump campaigned in 2016 on the claim that he'd do this, but immediately changed his position after taking office and sided with pharmaceutical companies lobbying against it. The law that forced his administration to make these deals today was President Biden's signature 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.) 

But Trump's own personal mental and physical health were once again the real focus today. Trump opened the event—which, again, was about drug purchasing discounts—with a bizarre ramble about a plan he'd come up with to spiff up the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool. Trump's idea is to coat the "filthy" water feature with the kind of lining found in backyard pools, except a slightly darker "American flag" shade of blue. 

The reflecting pool in 2021.

 

Then, as other people spoke, Trump once again fell fully and unambiguously asleep on live TV. His face drooped, his head lolled forward, and his eyes closed and remained closed until he jerked back awake.

The 79-year-old Trump's physical frailty is hardly a secret, and falling asleep like this is quite common behavior for Trump, who regularly nods off while in the public eye, and whose staff had to invent a whole new euphemism—"executive time"—to cover up his daytime naps on his official schedules. 

Unfortunately for Trump, his nap didn't seem to do him much good. When he woke up, he seemed cranky, and snapped at a reporter who asked if he had any idea how much longer his war with Iran would last. His reply: "You're such a disgrace. Did you hear what I just said? How many years was Vietnam?"

American combat operations in Vietnam lasted about eight years, from March 1965 to March 1973. Donald Trump was draft-eligible for most of that time, until a physician who was a tenant in a building owned by his father agreed to sign a fraudulent medical excuse. The Vietnam War is generally remembered as the conflict that showed that even nations much smaller and less well armed than Iran can effectively resist and strike back at military superpowers, and that "bombing them back to the Stone Age" doesn't win wars.
 

Why does this matter?

• The presidency of the United States is an important enough job that you need to be able to stay awake while actively doing it. 

• Forming weird, sudden obsessions with ideas that are grandiose but incoherent is a symptom of mania, and it is not a sign of good cognitive health in the elderly.

• Americans are allowed to ask questions of their presidents about major events like wars and it's only a disgrace if the president can't answer.