It has been reported that President Trump “yelled” and hung up the call which he was having with Malcolm Turnbull, the Australian Prime Minister. This was their first conversation together last Saturday.
The one hour allocated to the call ended abruptly within 25 minutes as Trump hung up on the Australian PM, when he got in a row over a refugee swap deal that the president has blasted as “dumb” and a “very bad deal.” He accused the Australian PM of sending to the US the next ‘Boston bomber’.
The story was first leaked out by the Washington Post which reported that Trump got annoyed when Malcolm Turnball insisted that the US stand by the deal agreed with former President Barack Obama and take the 1200 refugees.
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Speaking to the Press Malcolm Turnbull has denied that it was anything but courteous. He said, “Look, I’m not going to comment on a conversation between myself and the President of the United States other than what we have said publicly, and you can surely understand the reasons for that.” He went on to say, “I’m sure you can understand that. It’s better these conversations are conducted candidly, frankly, privately. If you’ll see reports of them, I’m not going to add to them.”
However, it has been reported that Trump called the call “the worst so far”. He also tweeted:
Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2017
Senator McCain, Chairperson of the Senate Arms committe has condemned the conduct of President Trump and has called the Australian Ambassador to the US to apologise.
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When reporters asked him about the conversation he replied: “This, in my view, was an unnecessary and frankly harmful open dispute over an issue which is not nearly as important as United States-Australian cooperation in working together, including training of our marines in Australia and other areas of military cooperation and intelligence.”