I've always figured that attempting to carry on a private conversation with Trump would be maddening if not impossible, but this is somehow worse than I imagined.
The Washington Post obtained transcripts of Trump's phone calls with Mexican President Peña Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull from earlier this year and they reveal that Trump's conversations with other world leaders are not too far removed from his rage tweets.
Trump describing the state of New Hampshire as a "drug-infested den" is probably going to capture most of the headlines today, but I'm more amused by his pathetic groveling.
Trump privately conceded that his fantasy border wall is a political scam and he begged President Peña Nieto to stop saying that Mexico won't pay for the wall.
“You cannot say that to the press,” Trump said repeatedly, according to a transcript of the Jan. 27 call obtained by The Washington Post. Trump made clear that he realized the funding would have to come from other sources but threatened to cut off contact if Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto continued to make defiant statements.
The funding “will work out in the formula somehow,” Trump said, adding later that “it will come out in the wash, and that is okay.” But “if you are going to say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore because I cannot live with that.”
He described the wall as “the least important thing we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important.” [...]
“On the wall, you and I both have a political problem,” Trump said. “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.”
Trump seemed to acknowledge that his threats to make Mexico pay had left him cornered politically. “I have to have Mexico pay for the wall — I have to,” he said. “I have been talking about it for a two-year period.”
This couldn't be any more clear unless Trump explicitly said he's playing his supporters for fools. But I'm sure he's said that at some point.
Oh.
TRUMP: "I love the poorly educated."
Trump also blamed Peña Nieto and Mexico for drug addiction in America. Pointing to the flow of illegal drugs, Trump said he "won New Hampshire" because the state is a "drug-infested den."
As you probably know, Trump did not win New Hampshire. Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire. Furthermore, the opioids ravaging the Northeast didn't come from Mexico. We made them right here and most of them are legal.
Trump's conversation with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was no less embarrassing.
Trump told Turnbull he might back out of a deal negotiated under the Obama administration to accept economic refugees from Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island and the island nation of Nauru. Trump said he "hates" refugees to which Turnbull replied by putting Trump in his place.
“I hate taking these people,” Trump said. “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” — an apparent reference to U.S. dairy farms. [...]
“There is nothing more important in business or politics than a deal is a deal,” Turnbull said. “You can certainly say that it was not a deal that you would have done, but you are going to stick with it.”
Trump only became angrier, saying the refugees could “become the Boston bomber in five years.”
The Boston bombers, of course, were Russian.