President Donald Trump told chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to leave the room for coughing during his ABC News interview last week and asked for a retake.
According to behind-the-scenes footage from the network's hours interviewing the president last week, Trump was answering a question by anchor George Stephanopoulos about whether he would turn over his financials to the Senate when Mulvaney coughed off camera.
"No, at some point, I might, [turn it over]," Trump said. "It's a fantastic financial statement — And let's do that over. He's coughing in the middle of my answer. I don't like that, you know, I don't like that."
Stephanopoulos added, "Your chief of staff."
"If you're going to cough, please leave the room," Trump said. "You just can't, you just can't cough. Boy, oh boy. OK, do you want to do that a little differently . . ."
Trump then returned to his answer, telling Stephanopoulos he wants people to see his financial documents "at some point," calling them "phenomenal."
However, he claimed it is "not up to me" about whether to release the material.
"It's up to lawyers, it's up to everything else," Trump told Stephanopoulos. "They're asking for things that they should never be asking for, that they've never asked another president for. They want to go through every deal that I've ever done — what they're doing is a disgrace."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.