A new Washington Post exclusive has revealed transcripts of conversations that the United States President Donald Trump has had with world leaders, and some of the details of those calls make for fascinating reading. The Washington Post got hold of the transcripts through a White House leak, and the conversations with the Mexican President Pena Nieto and the australian prime minister Turnbull reveals that the President is paranoid about his public image.
'Wall' problems
The President's campaign promise of building a wall at the US-Mexican border was the biggest issue in his call with Enrique Pena Nieto, and even more bizarrely, he continued to address the Mexican President by his first name throughout the duration of the call.
Now, the gist of the call might have been reported at the time, but the bare details only became available today after the Washington Post published the transcripts that they have obtained from White House staff. They did not reveal their source.
Trump had promised the wall and had also stated that he will force Mexico to pay for it. However, he was unable to sway Nieto in any way whatsoever. His paranoia regarding the subject and potential loss of face regarding the issue is revealed in the call. Trump went on to tell Nieto that the wall might be “the least important thing we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important.” He almost begged the Mexican President to not say publicly that Mexico won't pay for the wall and instead say that it was being worked on.
Testy call with Turnbull
The conversation with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was extremely testy in a number of ways. The President interrupted Turnbull plenty of times, seemed irritated, and went on to call an agreement signed by the Obama administration "stupid." During the entire call, Turnbull kept his calm and tried to explain the details of the deal as calmly as he possibly could.
As per the agreement, the U.S. is supposed to vet and then take in a maximum of 1,250 refugees who came to Australia by boat, a practice that the Australian government wants to end.
Trump believed that if he honored that deal, then his public image would suffer since he had just passed his infamous executive order instituting a ban on people entering the U.S.
from Muslim-majority countries. The President lost his cool during the call plenty of times. At one point he said, “I have had it. I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day. Putin was a pleasant call. This is ridiculous.”
