U.S. President Donald Trump attends a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 2, 2025. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

MS NOW Producer Steve Benen recently observed that despite the Republican Party's effort to tout President Donald Trump’s supposed health and vigor, the elderly president is doing his best to undermine his own party.

“Two weeks ago, the [New York] Times published a report on the Republican’s effort to ‘project round-the-clock energy, virility and physical stamina,’ which is starting to give way to an awkward new reality,” Benen said. “In the days that followed, the president appeared to fall asleep in a variety of official settings. This is, to put it lightly, an unusually sensitive subject for Trump, and given his online harangue, it seems the Times touched a nerve.”

It did not help that the Times wrote that Trump, 79, “is the oldest person to be elected to the presidency, and he is aging,” followed by an analysis of Trump’s schedule proving that nearly a year into his second term, Americans see Trump less than they used to.

“Trump has fewer public events on his schedule and is traveling domestically much less than he did by this point during his first year in office, in 2017, although he is taking more foreign trips. He also keeps a shorter public schedule than he used to. Most of his public appearances fall between noon and 5 p.m., on average,” the Times reported.

This put the Times at the top of Trump’s media enemies list, said Benen, adding that the president even went so far as to claim that broadcasters who air evening news programs “are doing something “illegal” if the White House disapproves of their coverage.”

Trump now says on Truth Social that reports about his own aging are ‘seditious, perhaps even treasonous.’

“After all of the work I have done with Medical Exams, Cognitive Exams, and everything else, I actually believe it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean ‘THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,’” Trump wrote.

“It’s insane for a sitting American president to equate journalism with sedition,” said Benen, but he added that he’s “also struck by the broader context” of Trump undermining his party’s messaging on health and virility by grabbing naps in very public places.

Read the MS NOW report at this link.