Awkward Oval Office moment: Trump kicks staffer out after embarrassing phone noise

At a signing ceremony in the Oval Office on August 25, 2025, President Donald Trump abruptly interrupted his comments to remove a staffer from the room. The disruption happened while he was responding to a reporter’s question, drawing attention for both the sudden interruption and Trump’s unexpected reaction.

Trump was answering a query about his recent decision to purchase a portion of Intel stock on behalf of the U.S. government. As he began to respond to the topic,

‘As you know the stock market went up almost a thousand points on Friday and it went up not because of…,’ before pausing mid-sentence due to the disruption.


Noise from a staffer’s phone briefly disturbed Trump and immediately turned toward the source and said,

‘Hello, who is that? Who is that back there? Alright, get out of the room!’

Laughter followed from cabinet members as the staffer left the room, and the sound of the Oval Office closing the door.

The Daily Mail cited that the staffer was White House staff secretary Will Scharf. Scharf is Trump’s executive order guru, responsible for handing the president physical copies of his orders in signing conferences and describing the significance of each directive. Moments before the incident occurred, Scharf was standing next to Trump, showing documents for signing.

This was not the first instance that Trump showed impatience with disruptions. In June 2019, he reportedly became frustrated with acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who coughed during a live ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos. During the time, Trump said, ‘Let’s do that over. He’s coughing in the middle of my answer,’ by pointing toward Mulvaney, and also cited, ‘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.’

FAQs:

Q1. What happened in the Oval Office?
During a signing ceremony, President Trump asked a staffer to leave after phone noise interrupted his remarks.

Q2. Who was the staffer involved?
The staffer was Will Scharf, Trump’s executive order guru who presents documents during signing events.