Does a viral video show former President Donald Trump falling asleep on the first day of the Republican National Committee convention in July 2024? No, that's not true: The image was taken when he had his eyes closed during a prayer. Photos and video from the event show that other attendees did that, too.
The claim appeared in a post with a video clip (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on July 15, 2024. It opened:
Trump fell asleep at the RNC.
On the first night.
He just got there.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Jul 16 13:01:16 2024 UTC)
The video appeared to capture an MSNBC segment discussing the Republican National Committee (RNC) convention (archived here) that began that day. Trump was formally confirmed as the party's presidential candidate during the event. The partially seen bottom banner referred to the news about announcing J.D. Vance as his vice presidential choice on Truth Social (archived here).
However, contrary to the claim on X, Trump was not asleep in the shared footage.
The same fragment appears at the 6:44:43 mark (archived here) in a recorded version of a live broadcast documenting the 2024 RNC convention:
(Source: X and YouTube screenshots taken on Tue Jul 16 16:25:49 2024 UTC)
Moments before zooming in on Trump, the camera showed a сlergyman on the stage, and the commentator said:
... there is a prayer going on right now. So you see former president Trump closing his eyes ...
Many other people at the RNC convention were seen with their eyes closed during the prayer as well:
(Sources: YouTube screenshots taken on Tue Jul 16 between 18:41:02 and 18:43:31 UTC)
A search across Google News for the keywords seen here (archived here) did not show any credible reporting corroborating the claim.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about Donald Trump are here. Stories about the 2024 U.S. presidential election are here.
