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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe telltale cough
By Amy Davidson Sorkin7:19 P.M.
... Stephanopoulos had been asking if Trump would release his tax returns and other records subpoenaed by congressional committees. The answer, basically, was no, but Trump said, At some point, I hope they get it, because its a financhere, there was a sound of off-camera coughing its a fantastic financial statement. Its a fantastic financial statement. And lets do that over, hes coughing in the middle of my answer. Stephanopoulos agreed to the do-over, and fingered the cougher, Mick Mulvaney, who is Trumps acting chief of staff ...
If youre going to cough, please leave the room, the President said. You just cant, you just cant cough. Boy, oh, boy. Trumps expression took on a hardness, as if he regarded the cough as a willful act of insubordination ...
One can speculate about whether Trump really has a problem with people coughing in his presence, or whether he just likes keeping his staff guessing as to what hes going to decide the next problem is. There were, needless to say, other ways that Trump might have handled the interruptionfor example, by asking if Mulvaney was O.K. As it was, Trumps response suggested that he operates under the assumption that people do not have much reality beyond their relation to him. He may also have assumed that his flash of contempt would be edited out of the final cut.
Trump had two main messages in the interviews: first, that he is respected, cheered, saluted, and loved. The people crying by the roadside were the ones that couldnt get in to his events. The second message: that his enemies are everywhereindeed, no President has ever been so persecuted ...
Trump told Stephanopoulos that his basic problem with members of Congress is that they have their own views, you never know, exactly, but they have their own views as if this were news, and a shock ...
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/donald-trump-and-the-telltale-cough
empedocles
(15,751 posts)Turbineguy
(37,206 posts)his brain removed for examination.
uriel1972
(4,261 posts)PJMcK
(21,916 posts)Was Mulvaney trying to warn Trump about answering the questions about his personal finances?
As usual, Trump was too stupid to understand the warning Mulvaney might have been sending.
Trump is an idiot.
malaise
(267,784 posts)I can't wait until one of these folks turn on him
PJMcK
(21,916 posts)... that will come out once Trump is gone!
htuttle
(23,738 posts)live love laugh
(12,995 posts)here we are trying to make sense of it when it was more likely a predetermined warning signal. I mean who coughs during a taping?
Dave Starsky
(5,914 posts)His boss, demented and not remembering the cue to stop, went on with his bullshit.
Grasswire2
(13,564 posts)People on MSNBC concluded that was the case.
Mulvaney was warning him.
And Big Ass rolled right along, oblivious!
I wonder how many times staffers try to stop Trump from fouling himself.