Oh, please. And, the cough *was* left in the interview!
POTUS is a producer. He very well knew that cough business could be, would be, made by ABC into a mocking cough against the statement he had just made, therefore, Trump verbally is seen angling for a retake forthwith. POTUS was HOT. The translation of “hot” means “unnerved” in my book, by what the cough meant to ABC and its viewers, and it meant enough to get hot about it. That’s why one would think it might be the ABC cameraman, because it drew such a furious reaction from Trump, who won’t let them get away with anything if sabotaging his performance.
I agree with you. Better if POTUS had either ignored the cough, or shown some humor in addressing it. It really was no big deal except for POTUS making it a big deal by giving an overly hard scold to one of his own loyalists, Mulvaney. George leapt on the flare of temper, and included it in the ABC story, only because it was not.a.good.look.
That the dust-up made it into the final ABC production tells you straight up that the reaction was a delight for George, and ABC, and a further fury for the president, who wanted it Out, and a further public insult to Mike Mulvaney.
I was embarrassed for Mulvaney and winced that POTUS would blast his own over an uncontrollable cough and tell him to leave the room. Yikes! It was supposed to be edited out butmade the national news, instead. bastids.
It’s a nothingburger. I guess that’s the best they can do.
Cough was probably intentional to knock the interviewer off pace and interrupt his questions. Nothing more than that.