President Donald Trump has announced a bold new approach to the USA’s energy crisis: sleep.
With America struggling to meet the energy demands of AI, manufacturing and crypto following the president’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz to punish Iran for doing the same, the new energy policy arrived not as legislation, slogan or executive order. But as demonstration.
During a recent soft launch, President DJT appeared to conserve power by closing his eyes while officials discussed a new steel plant. As stakeholders celebrated the historic $18b investment, Trump entered what was described by his spokesperson as “an unscheduled executive listening position.”
This, the world’s media discovered, is a state of advanced presidential focus in which the head becomes remarkably still, nobody is sure whether the meeting is still happening, and a pool of salivary concentration-juice forms on the Resolute Desk.
Trump’s close advisor Natalie Harp announced that the program could save billions of dollars. “If you don’t listen to the whole meeting, you can leave it much earlier. This will recoup millions of hours of lost productivity which can then be redeployed as further sleep, thereby generating more productivity,” she announced, over the continuous soft hissing noise of air passing between the President’s soft palate and tongue.
The theory has already attracted attention from researchers at the National Institute of Presidential Wakefulness – established this morning – who are investigating whether President Trump’s brain can receive information through his eyelids.
Health secretary RFK Jr. said: “Preliminary results have proved inconclusive. We haven’t established that it’s possible. Equally, we haven’t established that it isn’t. What’s important, is that we spend the $92m earmarked for this project as quickly as possible.
Critics pointed to the large number of public events during which the president has appeared to doze off. Harp offered a different interpretation.
“We’d have thought that this was obvious by now, but seeing as we need to spell it out: the president is so familiar with every subject there has ever been, he can absorb new information without even having to look at it.”
Vice-president JD Vance told journalists who continued to probe the president’s REM status to “wake up and smell the coffee” and then instructed the Secret Service to eject them.
Economists cautiously welcomed the new approach.
“If America can convert sleeping into productivity, we may have discovered the greatest economic innovation since tariffs,” said Steve Forbes.
Led by the big mattress providers, stock markets responded positively, despite a joint statement from Kenco and Monster Energy counselling caution.
New Wakefulness Tsar, Pastor Paula White-Cain, whose responsibilities include monitoring presidential energy levels and establishing whether his closed eyes represent sleep, concentration or prayer, was then on hand when Sir Christian Turner began briefing the president about the RAF Fairford terrorist incident.
While giving his update on the village of Welford’s Neighbourhood Watch arrangements, the baffled British ambassador, unused to America’s dynamic way of doing things, was uncertain about how to proceed when faced with closed presidential eyes and eventually ground to a halt.
In the ensuing 60-second silence, punctuated only by the sound of shuffling paper and Pete Hegseth grunting next door, White-Cain’s examination concluded that the president was deep in prayer, fully aware of the briefing, and that Turner should continue to explain how a multi-pronged vanguard of the Axis of Evil had organised the neutering of Western aerial capability by arranging for a few lads from Camden to nick some heating oil.
Eyebrows lifted, however, when deep into Turner’s explanation of the uniquely British phenomenon of tri-weekly bin collection cycles, the president began murmuring “Quiet, piggy.” All eyes turned to Pastor White-Cain, who made the sign of the cross and said “Amen.”
The self-styled Mississippi Rasputin then instructed everyone in the Oval Office that the ostensibly dozing president had in fact begun praying and that they should all hold hands and repeat his mutterances.
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“Man, woman, camera, TV. Yes, please Jeffrey, Mmm, that’s a big tariff.”
With Anglo-American relations arguably at their highest point since 2016, Sir Christian then left. The briefing continued without further incident; sources later confirmed that the British Embassy and the State Department had issued a statement describing the incident as “an ultimately productive episode of transatlantic spiritual cooperation.”
The White House, meanwhile, announced that the Wakefulness Tsar had succesfully completed her first assignment and would remain on duty at all future meetings. Her next assignment is understood to involve determining whether Trump is asleep during a two-hour presentation on grain yields.
Upon waking, the president denied falling asleep.
“I wasn’t asleep. My eyelids were making a deal with my cheeks. It’s very different. Tremendous difference. They say I have the best eyelids.”
When asked about the details of the steel plant, the president paused.
“Glass Mondays, Blue bins Thursdays, black bags every three weeks?”
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