CNN anchor Erin Burnett left viewers stunned this week after dedicating a segment of her primetime show to President Trump’s frenzied late-night activity on Truth Social, suggesting the commander-in-chief’s sleep-deprived posting spree may be fueling his increasingly hostile exchanges with reporters.
On Tuesday, May 12, 2026, “Erin Burnett OutFront” opened with the host condemning Trump for declaring earlier that day that he doesn’t think about Americans’ financial situation — a remark she described as a stunning slam of Americans. The president made the comment when a reporter asked how much the financial struggles of everyday Americans were motivating him to seek a peace deal with Iran. Trump replied that he didn’t consider the public’s finances even a little bit.
From there, Burnett pivoted to what she called the president’s tremendous volume of posts on Truth Social over a less than twenty-four-hour period. According to Burnett, Trump spent Monday night, May 11, and the early hours of Tuesday morning firing off more than 75 posts on his social media platform.
A Late-Night Posting Marathon
“His behavior today came after he spent much of the night seemingly awake. Maybe that’s why he’s so testy posting and reposting on social media. In fact, since 10 o’clock last night, overnight, more than 75 times. Do you know anybody who does that?” Burnett asked her audience.
The CNN host then walked viewers through some of the more bizarre entries in Trump’s overnight catalog. They included a picture of a $100 bill with the president’s own face superimposed on it, an image of his likeness being etched into Mount Rushmore, and an AI-generated picture of former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden swimming in sewage alongside former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in front of the Washington Monument.
Burnett tied the digital marathon directly to Trump’s mood during his press availability later that day, when he snapped at another female reporter. The president called MSNBC White House correspondent Akayla Gardner a “dumb person” after she asked him about the rising costs associated with his new White House ballroom project. Burnett played the clip and noted flatly that the man delivering the insult was the president of the United States.
Fact-Checkers Sound the Alarm
Burnett wasn’t alone in flagging the overnight blitz. CNN’s Daniel Dale, a longtime fact-checker of the Trump administration, took to X on May 13 to describe the spree as “detached from reality.”
Dale went on to explain that the fabricated quote originated with a satire website — what he called a fakery factory — that manufactures stories designed to be shared by online conservatives. According to the fact-check site Lead Stories, versions of the same fake quote have been wrongly attributed to figures ranging from Kash Patel to Madonna.
Sen. John Kennedy himself eventually weighed in, telling reporters that he had heard about the fabricated remark circulating online. “Somebody told me there was something floating around on the internet about me accusing President Obama of stealing $120 million or something. I didn’t say that. I don’t know the basis of it,” the Louisiana Republican said.
A Pattern of Targeting Reporters
Gardner wasn’t the only journalist in the president’s crosshairs this week. Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich was also attacked by Trump in a separate social media rant, continuing what critics describe as an escalating pattern of personal hostility directed at members of the White House press corps — particularly female reporters.
The combination of personal insults from the podium and the sheer volume of overnight posts has reignited questions about the president’s sleep habits and decision-making rhythms. Burnett’s segment, as observers noted, framed the two issues as connected — suggesting the president’s testy exchanges with the press may be a downstream symptom of nights spent scrolling and sharing rather than sleeping.
While the White House has not formally responded to the specific characterization that Trump’s posts were detached from reality, administration allies have pushed back on the broader media coverage, accusing CNN and other outlets of fixating on social media activity rather than policy substance. Critics counter that when the president himself uses Truth Social to amplify AI-generated images of political opponents and fabricated quotes from sitting senators, the platform activity is the policy story.
For now, Burnett’s question — whether anyone else in America posts 75 times in a single overnight stretch — continues to resonate as the president shows no signs of slowing his digital output heading into the weekend of May 15.