G’day, world. Or maybe not. It’s hard to think of any day when Donald Trump is dialing up America’s allies and berating them as all that good.
It should have been one of the most congenial calls for the new commander in chief — a conversation with the leader of Australia, one of America’s staunchest allies, at the end of a triumphant week.
Instead … 25 minutes into what was expected to be an hour-long call, Trump abruptly ended it.
At one point Trump informed [Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull] that he had spoken with four other world leaders that day — including Russian President Vladimir Putin — and that “This was the worst call by far.”
You can be sure that Putin was running his finger down a list of random compliments during the conversation. So Trump put that chat with the man who wants to destroy America’s strategic alliances and threatens global conflict in the “just right” category.
On the other hand, Turnbull made the mistake of talking to Trump like an adult. And that’s always a big no-no. Trump’s regular army of apologists is arguing that the call came “at the end of a long day” and that Trump was snippy with the Australian PM due to “fatigue.”
Trump made the call to Turnbull about 5 p.m. Saturday from his desk in the Oval Office, where he was joined by chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, national security adviser Michael Flynn and White House press secretary Sean Spicer.
So, by 5 PM in the afternoon, Trump was too tired to conduct a routine call with an ally. Plus we’ve already been told that starting too early in the morning is cutting into Trump's television time.
Forget handling the 3 AM call. From now one, all world crises must be scheduled after 9:30 and before noon.
The subject that generated the biggest Trump tantrum on his call with Turnbull was a deal that the United States made to take in refugees who have been stranded for years in camps on Pacific Islands.
More than 1,200 asylum seekers are held on Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Almost 400 who came to Australia for medical treatment and then refused to return to the islands are also eligible for resettlement to the United States. Many are from the seven Muslim-majority countries from which Trump has suspended immigration for three months.
Many of the refugees fled Iran. Australia, the United States, and NGOs have already been working to check their backgrounds and verify their refugee status. But the problem in Trump’s eyes is that the agreement with Australia runs smack into his ill-planned Muslim ban.
“This is the worst deal ever,” Trump fumed as Turnbull attempted to confirm that the United States would honor its pledge to take in 1,250 refugees from an Australian detention center. Trump, who one day earlier had signed an executive order temporarily barring the admissions of refugees, complained that he was “going to get killed” politically and accused Australia of seeking to export the “next Boston bombers.”
As with most things. Trump seems to have had zero knowledge of the deal before he got on the phone—which makes you wonder just what Spicer, Bannon, and Flynn told him the call would be about. Understanding the background of a situation and the complex series of decisions and agreements that generated current positions, rather than just acting without thought would be … not dumb. And not Trump.