Photo shows Trump looking down, not sleeping, at 2017 NATO summit | Fact check

BrieAnna J. Frank, USA TODAY
·2 min read

The claim: Image shows Trump falling asleep at the 2017 NATO summit

An Aug. 6 Threads post (direct link, archive link) shows an image of former President Donald Trump with his head tilted down at an event.

“Remember that time when Trump fell asleep at the 2017 Nato summit?” reads text included in the image, which is a screenshot of a post on X, formerly Twitter. “That was embarrassing.”

It was liked more than 900 times in two weeks. Other versions of the claim spread on Threads, and the original X post was shared more than 6,000 times.

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Our rating: False

The photo shows Trump looking down during the 2017 NATO summit. There is no evidence he fell asleep at any point during the event.

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The photo shows NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg sitting next to Trump during the inauguration ceremony for NATO's new headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on May 25, 2017, according to its European Pressphoto Agency caption.

But contrary to the social media claim, the caption said it showed Trump as he "looks down during the inauguration ceremony." It makes no mention of him falling alseep.

A video of the ceremony does not show Trump falling asleep, and there are no credible news reports about the supposed incident.

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USA TODAY has debunked an array of similar claims about Trump and President Joe Biden, including false assertions that footage showed Trump sleeping during the Republican National Convention, that Biden fell asleep during the June debate with Trump and that Biden fell asleep during the 2023 NATO summit.

USA TODAY reached out to users who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

PolitiFact and Check Your Fact also debunked the claim.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: False claim image shows Trump asleep at NATO in 2017 | Fact check

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