From The Age: ‘Trump kept talking over the top of me’: Turnbull recounts tense call. Turnbull has to be the absolute high water mark of political stupidity. Is there anyone more completely dense who has ever been a political leader anywhere. Read this and wonder.
A furious Donald Trump berated then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull over a deal to resettle hundreds of refugees, only to joke about the agreement months later by claiming 2000 “terrorists” would come to America.
The US President swung wildly in the negotiations to resettle asylum seekers from Manus Island and Nauru, in a pattern repeated in volatile talks to give Australia valuable exemptions in Mr Trump’s trade war with China.
Recounting the clashes and compromises in a new memoir, Mr Turnbull tells of a colleague going “white with horror” at Mr Trump’s ferocity about the refugee deal in a notorious phone conversation in January 2017….
“As his anger rose, Trump kept talking over the top of me, with more intensity,” Mr Turnbull writes of the phone call.
“It was as though at times he was talking to himself or perhaps to the people in the room, which of course included [then presidential adviser] Steve Bannon, one of the deal’s fiercest opponents.
“At one point, I looked up from the phone across my desk to [senior adviser] David Bold – his face was white with horror – so I turned to look out the window instead.”…
When Mr Trump asked his wife, Melania, to join the talks, he joked with Mr Turnbull about the refugee deal he had been so angry about months earlier.
“Melania, do you know, Malcolm has 2000 of the worst terrorists in the world locked up on a desert island and that fool Obama agreed to take them?” Mr Trump said, according to the new memoir.
“And now Malcolm has talked me into taking them, too.”
Mr Turnbull notes that while the conversation was “surreal”, the deal meant refugees would soon begin leaving the islands to resettle in the US….
“So, you’ve been having a little fun at my expense, Malcolm?” he said, according to Mr Turnbull’s account. “It’s not bad. Lots of people think you are better than Alec Baldwin.”
As French President Emmanuel Macron listened, Mr Turnbull told Mr Trump – “wearily” – that the refugees were not terrorists.
“Oh, yes, they are,” Mr Trump replied, in Mr Turnbull’s account. “They are the worst, and that fool Obama – the worst president EVER – agreed to take them to America. Can you believe that? Would you take them, Emmanuel?”
Mr Turnbull says the French President opened his mouth but did not say anything.
Mr Turnbull concludes that Trump is a “radical” and “populist” leader whose deliberate unpredictability generates fear and anxiety in other nations rather than respect for American strength.
The only reason we can rule out a CIA coup is that everything Malcolm stood for is part of the American Deep State agenda.
ILLUSTRATING THE POLITICAL DIVIDE: It is worth having a look at the comments section on this post at The Age. This is the comment which was selected by the others as “most respected”.
It’s all part of the job, as MT would have known this before he took it on. The American people did elect a lunatic and our far right wing politicians see Trump’s behaviour as pretty good, that is, anything you can get away while still holding the treasury benches is okay. Democracy is such a lottery, anyone can nominate and when they get elected their true traits come out. In Canberra Malcolm was from a different universe, well educated and successful while so many of the career MPs have done little else since they landed a ministerial adviser job at age 25 or so. These people no nothing about dealing with ‘normal’ human beings – they see everything from the prism of the Canberra bubble. My hope is the Libs and Nats implode – what a nice thought!
What overlap is there with people who see things this way? Unbelievably ignorant, with not an ounce of common sense or understanding of anything. But they’re there, and in large numbers too. Useful idiots though they may be, they will yet doom us to perdition.
Law of Markets 