June 17, 2019

Trump Kicks His Chief of Staff out of the Oval Office for Coughing in His Presence

“You just can’t. You just can’t cough.”

Shawn Thew/ZUMA

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For all the anonymous, bruising leaks that have detailed palace intrigue inside the Trump White House, only a few moments have emerged on tape allowing the public to glimpse the administration’s chaos for themselves—and see that none of this is normal. 

Luckily, the latest installment of ABC’s headline-making interview with the president provides such a rare opportunity.

The moment came while Trump discussed the longstanding fight to release more information about his personal finances with George Stephanopoulos. He claimed he hoped a so-called “financial statement” will one day be publicly available because it is “fantastic.” Seconds later, he abruptly stops.

“Let’s do that over. He’s coughing in the middle of my answer,” the president said referring to his own chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney.

The ever-media minded president, who is a noted germaphobe and a former reality television star, continued: “I don’t like that, you know. I don’t like that.”

“If you’re going to cough, please leave the room. You just can’t. You just can’t cough,” Trump added, as microphones captured Mulvaney’s exit. “Boy, oh boy! Okay, do you want to do that a little differently then?” Trump asked the television crew.

The scolding is only the latest instance in the president’s long record of humiliating and undermining aides. Many of them have quickly found themselves discarded from his inner circle.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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