Donald Trump on Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison, China and his Australian supporters
He famously hung up on Malcolm Turnbull. Now Donald Trump has made known how he actually feels about Australia’s former prime minister.
National
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Donald Trump has revealed what he really thinks about Malcolm Turnbull following a famous call in which he hung up on him over a dispute on a refugee swap deal.
In a Sky News exclusive aired tonight, the US President spoke with Sky News anchor Paul Murray in Washington ahead of the official US State Dinner held yesterday in Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s honour.
In the wide-ranging interview, the billionaire president disclosed he had a “special relationship” with Mr Morrison, said he was more concerned about trade with China than their tanks, and said he planned to visit Australia “pretty soon”.
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Murray asked Mr Trump why he “obviously” prefers our current prime minister to the former, alluding to a phone call in 2017 in which he famously hung up on Mr Turnbull over a refugee swap deal that was struck during Barack Obama’s tenure.
“Well I liked Malcolm, you’re talking about Malcolm, I liked Malcolm very much, but I tell ya Scott is — and I really think they’re both very good people — but I’ve developed a very special relationship with Scott, he’s a great gentleman,” Mr Trump said.
America’s 45th president said he had developed a close relationship with Australia’s PM over their “surprise” leadership victories.
“Scott’s a very strong man, a very good man, and I think he’s somebody that’s respected very much in your country,” Mr Trump said.
“And he had the kind of election that I had so we have something in common. It was a little bit of a surprise and it was a very big victory.”
Mr Trump heaped praise on Australia when asked about his supporters Down Under.
“It’s a great country. I think that’s truly one of the great countries actually. A beautiful place. I was there a couple of times, have a lot of friends there, have a lot of friends here from Australia. Very special people, very strong, great people,” he said.
The president would not give a date on when he planned to visit Australia, but alluded to December, when the Presidents Cup golf event happens in Melbourne.
“I’ll be there and I know you have the President’s Cup coming and that’s exciting but I’ll be there pretty soon,” he said.
Asked about his comments regarding “fake media” at a press event, Mr Trump said: “We have a very strange media group of people and they don’t always put the truth out, and we like the truth.”
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The President said he was more concerned about trade than war, when asked about US tensions with China.
“Well I think really what we have is the trade but everything equalisers if you think about it. You know, we’ve paid China hundreds of billions of dollars a year much more than we should have. Other presidents should have done something about this. But I have a very good relationship with President Xi (Jinping) and we’ll see if we can work something out,” he said.
Mr Trump said Australia’s economy was doing “fantastically”.
“They’ve (China) had a very rough year, they’ve had a very, very bad year, worst in 57 years and they’re losing a lot of jobs, their supply chain is breaking. We’re getting tens of billions of dollars in tariffs and our economy is doing fantastically well, as is yours by the way, but our economy is doing fantastically well.
“So we’ll just keep it going, we’ll see what happens but we’re charging China a lot of money now to do business with us.”
Murray concluded the interview asking the President about his favourite meal from the White House kitchen.
“Well they have great food I will say but I would say the steak they make here is about as good as it gets. Although in Australia you probably have better come to think of it,” he said.
Murray responded: “We’ll try and show it off to you”.