Trump pulled out a tin of Tic Tacs at Lindsey Graham’s funeral, tossed one toward his own mouth, and missed.
That happened. At a state funeral. In Washington National Cathedral. With the presidents of Ukraine and Israel sitting nearby.
The Tic Tac failure wasn’t even the most embarrassing part of Tuesday afternoon. Trump spent a significant portion of the service visibly nodding off — head drooping, eyes fluttering, face slack — as eulogies for one of his closest political allies played out around him.
Video clips circulating on Twitter showed his head tilting as he fought to stay conscious. Journalist Aaron Rupar posted multiple clips of the 80-year-old president losing the battle in real time.
And this came after Trump had already delivered his own eulogy — one where he went off-script to fact-check his own speechwriters on the question of whether Graham was universally liked.
“Virtually everyone — Republican or Democrat — liked Lindsey,” Trump read, then stopped himself. “Well, not everybody. But it sounds good. I have to be honest. I have to veer from this for a second,” he said.
Trump takes issue with the Lindsey Graham eulogy he's reading: "Virtually everyone liked Lindsey. Well, not everybody. But it sounds good. I have to be honest. I have to veer from this for a second." pic.twitter.com/L5JwAXxWi0
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 28, 2026
He also appeared to briefly blank on Graham’s name before recovering.
Trump did manage to get some laughs by recounting the time he read Graham’s personal cell phone number aloud at a 2016 campaign rally. He called it “the beginning of a friendship.” Graham’s family, in the front pews, got to hear all of this.
The context for Trump’s exhaustion isn’t hard to find. While mourners gathered at the Capitol Rotunda that same morning for a separate memorial, Trump was at the White House posting nearly 40 times in 40 minutes on Truth Social.
The posts included a shirtless Spanish soccer player in a MAGA hat, multiple attacks on Elizabeth Warren, a Lil Wayne quote, and a claim that the 2020 election was rigged. “It was a Rigged Election that we must learn from. Never forget!” Trump wrote, per the Daily Beast.
Doctors have previously warned that Trump’s late-night posting habits are aggravating his chronic venous insufficiency diagnosis. The Daily Beast quoted Dr. Sanjiv Lakhanpal, founder of the Center for Vein Restoration, saying: “If you don’t maintain a certain kind of lifestyle — and you’re up at odd times, and you’re not using compression socks so you’re fatigued, this won’t be helping.”
Graham, 71, died July 11 of an aortic dissection. Netanyahu and Zelenskyy both attended the funeral — a testament to three decades of Graham pushing the U.S. toward every available military conflict. Melania Trump did not attend.
Trump’s eulogy ran about 14 minutes. Then he sat down and went to sleep.