US President Donald Trump cut short a cabinet meeting on Thursday, declaring previous marathon sessions in which he was spotted resting his eyes were "pretty boring."

But Trump denied that he had been caught napping during the previous gatherings at the White House, one of which lasted three hours and 17 minutes as his team took turns praising him.

"We are going to ask a couple of people to say a few words, and we're not going to go through the whole table," Trump said after his opening monologue on Thursday, which lasted 25 minutes.

"Because the last time we had a press conference, it lasted for three hours, and some people said 'he closed his eyes.'

"Look, it got pretty boring. I love these people, but there's a lot of people," he added. "But I didn't sleep. I just closed them because I wanted to get the hell out of here."

Among the officials that Trump did not call on to speak at his first cabinet meeting of 2026 was Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem – who is at the centre of a storm over the killing of a protester by immigration agents in Minneapolis.

The 79-year-old Trump has appeared to struggle to keep his eyes open in some of his previous cabinet meetings, raising sensitive questions about the health of the oldest person ever to be elected as US president.

Trump has pushed back against questions over his vigour. He also blamed "boring as hell" cabinet meetings for looking sleepy in an interview with New York Magazine published on Monday.

This time the cabinet met for a relatively short – for Trump – one hour and 20 minutes.

Almost as extraordinary was the fact that Trump declined to take questions from reporters at the end. That meant no awkward queries to Noem – or to the president himself on his escalating threats of military action against Iran. (AFP)