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Column: 'This is going to kill me' and other key quotes from Trump's phone calls

 
Published Aug. 3, 2017

The Washington Post obtained the two transcripts of President Donald Trump's January telephone conversations with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Here are some of the more interesting passages, with context added:

TRUMP TO PEÑA NIETO: "We have the drug lords in Mexico that are knocking the hell out of our country. They are sending drugs to Chicago, Los Angeles and to New York. Up in New Hampshire — I won New Hampshire because New Hampshire is a drug-infested den — is coming from the southern border. So we have a lot of problems with Mexico farther than the economic problem. We are becoming a drug-addicted nation and most of the drugs are coming from Mexico or certainly from the southern border. But I will say this — you have that problem, too. You have some pretty tough hombres in Mexico that you may need help with, and we are willing to help you with that big league."

TRUMP TO TURNBULL: "Look, I spoke to Putin, Merkel, Abe of Japan, to France today, and this was my most unpleasant call."

This is extraordinary language for the leader of one friendly country to say to another. The whole point of these phone calls, days after Trump was inaugurated, was for the two leaders to get to know each other and start things off on the best possible note.

Trump steamrolled that objective when he compared his conversation with the Australian prime minister, leader of one of America's staunchest allies, to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had just meddled in the U.S. election, and deemed Putin more pleasant.

TRUMP TO TURNBULL: "I hate taking these people. I guarantee you they are bad. That is why they are in prison right now. They are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people."

Trump seems singularly focused on bad people getting into the United States and how bad it will make him look. He had just signed an executive order banning travelers from seven majority-Muslim nations (which courts would later block). His logic is that if he agrees to take in 1,250 immigrants who landed in Australia, per a deal the Obama administration made, he'll look like a hypocrite. Especially if Trump's greatest fear is realized and one of these people turns into the "Boston bomber" (his words) or the next "San Bernardino or World Trade Centers" (also his words).

Never mind that Turnbull explains to Trump, several times, that these immigrants were vetted both by Australian and U.S. security officials.

TRUMP TO TURNBULL: "What is the thing with boats? Why do you discriminate against boats?"

Trump seems baffled by Australia's policy of rejecting refugees who arrive by boat, even though Turnbull had explained several times that it's a deterrent policy because that's how smugglers bring them in as well: Anyone who tries to migrate to Australia by water will automatically get kicked out. "So we said if you try to come to Australia by boat, even if we think you are the best person in the world, even if you are a Nobel Prize winning genius, we will not let you in," Turnbull finally says.

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TRUMP TO PEÑA NIETO: "The only thing I will ask you though is on the wall, you and I both have a political problem. My people stand up and say, 'Mexico will pay for the wall' and your people probably say something in a similar but slightly different language. But the fact is we are both in a little bit of a political bind because I have to have Mexico pay for the wall — I have to. I have been talking about it for a two-year period. ... So what I would like to recommend is — if we are going to have continued dialogue — we will work out the wall. They are going to say, 'who is going to pay for the wall, Mr. President?' to both of us, and we should both say, "we will work it out.' It will work out in the formula somehow. As opposed to you saying, 'we will not pay' and me saying, 'we will not pay.' ...

"I am just going to say that we are working it out. Believe it or not, this is the least important thing that we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important talk about."

TRUMP TO TURNBULL: "This is going to kill me. I am the world's greatest person that does not want to let people into the country. ... It makes me look so bad, and I have only been here a week."

This was about the Australian refugee deal again. Trump's singular focus on letting bad people into the country seems derived from his concern for his public reputation. Trump ran on reining in immigration, and he seemed worried that honoring a deal made by the Obama administration would hurt his credibility, or at the very least make him look like a hypocrite.

© 2017 Washington Post