The White House social media team sharply criticized a Reuters correspondent after he shared a photo of President Donald Trump with his eyes closed during an event at the White House.
The exchange unfolded after a maternal health event held in the Oval Office on Monday. Reuters correspondent Idrees Ali posted a photograph from the event showing Trump with his eyes shut. The image was taken by Reuters photographer Evelyn Hockstein.
Ali shared the photo with a standard caption, writing: “U.S. President Donald Trump attends a maternal health event in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 11, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein,” he wrote.
The post did not directly claim that Trump was asleep or suggest that he had dozed off during the event. However, the White House’s Rapid Response team objected to the image and responded angrily on social media.
“He was blinking, you absolute moron,” the team complained.
The response quickly drew attention because of its unusually blunt tone. The White House Rapid Response account is often used to push back against criticism, media coverage and online narratives involving the president and his administration. In this case, the team appeared to argue that the Reuters image gave a misleading impression of Trump’s condition during the Oval Office event.
The episode highlights the ongoing tension between the Trump White House and members of the press. Trump and his allies have frequently accused major news organizations of unfair coverage, while journalists have continued to document the president’s public appearances, remarks and official events.
Photos of public figures with their eyes closed can often generate online speculation, especially in the highly charged political environment surrounding Trump. A single frame from a public event can be interpreted differently depending on the context and the caption attached to it. In Ali’s post, however, the wording remained limited to the basic details of the event, location, date and photo credit.
The White House’s reaction also reflects the administration’s aggressive approach to defending the president online. Rather than issuing a formal clarification, the Rapid Response team chose a direct and personal rebuttal aimed at the Reuters correspondent.
Neither Ali’s caption nor the Reuters credit included any suggestion that Trump had been sleeping at the event. Still, the image was enough to prompt a forceful response from the White House, which insisted that the president had simply been caught mid-blink.