Trump will wake up sleeping staff just to talk to them during long trips, Kaitlin Collins says

Donald Trump has no qualms waking up sleeping staff so he can speak to them during the night, according to a journalist who worked closely with White House staffers.

Trump, 79, famously gets by on very little sleep, and is reportedly less than sympathetic to those who require normal levels of rest. Staffers on Airforce One during intercontinental flights are said to dread these trips because the president might want someone to talk to during the night.

According to CNN’s chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, one of her sources told her that Trump “does not sleep”, and will send for people he wants to talk to during the night.

Speaking about what it was like travelling with him, Collins told Jason Tartick’s Trading Secrets podcast: “I had this source who said ‘you never want to be on Airforce One on a trip’. And I said why? You’d think you’d want to [have] access to power, close to Trump.”

She explained: “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 have them go wake staff up if they’re asleep because he wants to talk to them.”

She added: “You’re not going to sleep on that flight.”

Trump has previously been dismissive of his need for much sleep, telling supporters on the campaign trail, “You know, I’m not a big sleeper. I like three hours, four hours, I toss, I turn, I beep-de-beep, I want to find out what’s going on.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi recently said none of the White House team “can keep up with him”. She added: “I don’t know how he does it. I mean, none of us know when he sleeps. He’s working all the time, and it’s just constant for him.”

Trump’s conduct in office remains a constant focus of public scrutiny, but his treatment of staff also illustrates the standards he sets for his subordinates.

During his first term in office, Trump was accused of treating White House staff like a “concierge” service, and reportedly had a button installed on the Resolute Desk, that when pressed would call for a staff member to bring him a diet coke on a silver platter.

In his memoir chronicling his time at the White House, former national security advisor John Bolton damningly claimed Trump “couldn’t tell the difference between his personal interests and the country’s interests”.

Omarosa Manigault Newman’s memoir, titled Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House, revealed not only that Trump had asked to be sworn into office over a copy of his own ghost-written memoir, The Art of The Deal, instead of the bible, but also alleges he fired a member of staff because he didn’t like the way they’d “handled” the arrival of his tanning bed in the White House.

She also claimed that she witnessed Trump chewing on the remnants of shredded documents.