What Donald Trump’s fiery phone call with Malcolm Turnbull reveals about his presidency

DONALD Trump’s fiery phone call with Malcolm Turnbull may be a disaster for our PM, but the burning of a key ally may also have repercussions for the President.

Malcolm Turnbull’s phone call with Donald Trump over the refugee deal is likely to have repercussions for both leaders. Picture: Lawrence Pinder

DONALD Trump has made history by picking a fight with a close ally just nine days into his presidency.

James Fallows, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine and a Nonresident Fellow Lowy Institute for International Policy, told News Corp the exchange was being seen as a worrying indication of things to come for President Trump.

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“Dealings with Australia are trouble-free, more so than any other nation,” Mr Fallows said.

Speaking from California after reports of the conversation were confirmed, he said: “This is 100 per cent being taken as a reflection on Trump.”

“For a Republican US president, managing relations with a Liberal Prime Minister of Australia should be one of the easier and more enjoyable, not one of the more challenging, parts of the job,” he said.

“So the fact that even this conversation strained Trump’s patience and temperament is a cautionary sign.

“If dealings with Australia create a crisis, what’s it going to be like for him to deal with China, or North Korea, or Iran ... Russia is its own case.

“Also, the explanation being put out by the White House now is that this call came at ‘the end of a long day’ when Trump was ‘tired.’

“This is the hardest job in the world — I say that partly based on having worked in the White House for Jimmy Carter long ago, and reporting since then.

“If a call on a Saturday afternoon, with a friendly leader, is ‘tiring,’ that is a bad sign — especially for the oldest person ever to be sworn in as president.”

Donald Trump speaking on the phone with Malcolm Turnbull in the Oval Office. Picture: Pete Marovich/Consolidated News Photos

Mr Fallows, who previously worked as a speech writer for President Carter, the fact that there are high-level leaks just 11 days into President Trump’s administration strongly suggested that foreign policy advisers were concerned.

He said the call with Turnbull was unprecedented.

“Reports of this difficult phone call are getting a lot of attention in the United States, for reasons that reflect more on Donald Trump than on Malcolm Turnbull or anyone else in Australia,” he said.

“The question all along about Donald Trump was whether the reality-show performer of the campaign could manage the transition to the unmatched intellectual and temperamental demands of the presidency.”

But Australians shouldn’t be overly concerned about the future of the alliance with the US as the main issue was a minor refugee deal, Mr Fallows said.

News of the conversation blew up earlier today after The Washington Post reported Trump had cut a phone call with Mr Turnbull short after berating him over a deal to resettle 1250 refugees on Manus Island and Nauru in the US.

President Trump took to Twitter later in the day to condemn the deal.

“Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal,” he said.

The tweet was posted around 11pm Washington time.

Mr Turnbull has repeatedly refused to go into details of his discussion with President Trump today but denied one aspect of the reports this afternoon.

“The report that the president hung up is not correct, the call ended courteously,” he told 2GB radio this afternoon.

The Prime Minister also responded to President Trump’s tweet, saying the facts were President Trump had given an assurance during their conversation that the deal would go ahead, White House press secretary Sean Spicer confirmed that in a briefing on Wednesday and the US embassy in Canberra reconfirmed it this afternoon.

“I do stand up for Australia but I can assure you the call was courteous,” Mr Turnbull said.

He said the deal had always proceeded on the basis that the United States would do security checks on any individual that would be resettled in the US, as was their right.