ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel devoted much of his monologue on Tuesday, September 15, 2026, to President Donald Trump’s eyelids. The longtime Trump nemesis needled the 80-year-old president for appearing to nod off at the September 11 memorial ceremony, staged on the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks — and handed him a nickname built entirely around how often he has been caught dozing in public.
The coinage: “Teddy Doze-evelt.”
“At the event, Teddy Doze-evelt got in a pretty good nap,” Kimmel said, telling viewers the White House had denied that the president fell asleep.
“They said he was just ‘solemnly listening,’” Kimmel continued. “Which is the same kind of ‘solemnly listening’ Melania does when he tries to crawl in bed with her.”
A Supercut of Public Catnaps
Kimmel backed the bit with a montage of clips — close to a minute of footage in which Trump’s eyes are shut. The reel ran through his 2025 swearing-in, the Fourth of July fireworks display, the third game of the NBA Finals, a Memorial Day observance at Arlington National Cemetery, the funeral for Pope Francis, the July funeral for Sen. Lindsey Graham, a string of Cabinet meetings, and the September 11 memorials in 2025 and 2026.
The host then pivoted to hypocrisy, reminding the audience that Trump spent years attacking former President Joe Biden’s age and alertness under the label “Sleepy Joe.”
Trump has offered his own account of the closed eyes. He has denied being asleep at earlier Cabinet meetings, saying he shut his eyes because the sessions were “pretty boring.” California Gov. Gavin Newsom took a social media jab at his Memorial Day appearance at Arlington, and has a nickname of his own for the president: “Dozy Don.”
A Compliment With a Catch
One compliment did make it into the segment, with a string attached. “Compared to Mitch McConnell, Trump has more energy than Kevin Hart,” Kimmel joked, then rolled a clip of Sen. Mitch McConnell, 84, looking dazed as he came back to the job in a wheelchair. The senator had been gone 92 days, hospitalized June 14 after a fall, and returned to the Senate floor the week of September 14. “For months, no one was sure if he was even alive. We still don’t know!” Kimmel added.
The Kennedy Center Standoff
Trump’s sleep habits were not the only target. On Wednesday, September 16, the host went after the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., suggesting the place be renamed for First Lady Melania Trump. Its board of trustees had voted the previous day to shut the main building immediately for two years of renovations, with a reopening projected for 2028.
Minutes before that vote, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper had ruled that the president’s name cannot go on the building or its grounds without congressional approval. “Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” Cooper wrote.
Trump answered on Truth Social on September 15, saying he was closing the center “for safety reasons” after the federal judge denied adding the phrase “renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump” to the building’s exterior. He made the construction work conditional on two courts, not only the Supreme Court: “The closing will take place immediately, however, the Renovation and Reconstruction, which is a very large and complex job, cannot begin until such time as the D.C. Circuit rules on the Board’s approved name. If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place.”
In the days before the September 15 vote, Kennedy Center administrators told the board that the main building’s physical plant is unsafe and that the center’s finances are “within weeks” of bankruptcy. Rep. Joyce Beatty, Democrat of Ohio, the plaintiff in the federal suit, filed Trump’s statement with the federal judge.
The renovation itself has been put at $257 million, and a $100 million fundraising campaign has been reported.
The arts center has been one of the fixations of Trump’s second term. He made himself chairman after returning to office in 2025 and put his name on the building. A federal judge barred him from keeping it there, inside or out, and workers stripped “Donald J. Trump” from the facade soon after.
In the same September 16 monologue, Kimmel put up photos of Trump’s name and face on the exteriors of the Department of Labor and the Department of the Interior. “At this point, the only thing he doesn’t want his name on is Don Jr.,” he said.
Streisand Joins the Backlash
One of the institution’s own honorees has weighed in as well. An Emmy, Grammy and Oscar winner, Barbra Streisand, 84, took the Kennedy Center honor in 2008. Her statement, published on Thursday, September 17, ridiculed the president’s “unchecked ego.”
“That is why what is happening to the Kennedy Center is so galling and painful to witness,” Streisand wrote. Artists and much of the public, she said, pushed back widely against his attempt to place his name alongside the late President John F. Kennedy’s at the building’s entrance. She also noted that no one had talked about closing the venue while his name was still on it.
