Flying overseas with President Donald Trump isn’t just a test of diplomacy — it’s an endurance sport. Even his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, admits that keeping up with a president who barely sleeps can be tougher than negotiating with world leaders.
In a candid interview with New York Magazine, Rubio pulled back the curtain on life aboard Air Force One, where power naps involve blankets, strategic camouflage, and a commander-in-chief who treats red-eye flights like brainstorming sessions.
Rubio said travelling overseas with President Donald Trump, 79, made it difficult for him to sleep on Air Force One because the President “practically never” slept and walked the aircraft to see who was awake, the Daily Beast reported.
“There’s an office with two couches, and I usually want to sleep on one of those two couches,” Rubio told the magazine. “But what I do is I cocoon myself in a blanket. I cover my head. I look like a mummy.”
Washington correspondent Ben Terris reported that Rubio then “mimed pulling a blanket over his body as if he were auditioning for a Snuggie commercial”.
“I do that because I know that at some point on the flight, he’s going to emerge from the cabin and start prowling the hallways to see who is awake,” Rubio went on. “I want him to think it’s a staffer who fell asleep. I don’t want him to see his Secretary of State sleeping on a couch and think, ‘Oh, this guy is weak.’”
Rubio was not the first to describe Trump’s lack of rest on overseas trips. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard described Trump as “absolutely tireless” in an October interview with Fox News.
“I know somebody made a comment on the plane, you know, [that] he goes on these long trips, these long plane rides, doesn’t sleep, he’s working throughout those flights, hits the ground running and gets directly to business,” she said.
Sources also said the same to Kaitlan Collins, CNN’s chief White House correspondent.
“I had this source who said you never want to be on Air Force One on a trip,” Collins previously told podcaster Jason Tartick. “He doesn’t sleep on these trips. And like, you’re going to Asia or something, and that’s kind of the only time you’re going to sleep before you go on this trip, but Trump is just always up and talking, and he’ll like have them go and wake staff up if they’re asleep because he wants to talk to them.”
The accounts came as Trump was seen drifting off to sleep at several public events. Asked about those episodes, Rubio responded: “It’s a listening mechanism,” he told New York Magazine.
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.
