The Trump and Turnbull phone call is just a little bit glorious

FOR anyone who loves a sneak peek at the way leaders talk when they’re not behind podiums, the leaked transcript is delicious, writes James Morrow.

President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. (Pic: AP/Alex Brandon)

WELL, that went well.

Did anyone cover themselves in glory in the just-leaked transcript of the infamous phone call between Malcolm Turnbull and Donald Trump?

No.

But is the whole thing just a little bit glorious?

For anyone who loves a sneak peek at the way leaders talk when they’re not behind podiums and surrounded by flags, absolutely.

Seasoned watchers of Trump and Turnbull would have heard alarm bells ringing the moment they came to the bit where our Prime Minister suggested to the President that they might get along because, well, they’re both businessmen.

Donald Trump was clearly angry in his call with Malcolm Turnbull over the refugee deal. (Pic: Warren Brown)

As if there could be any more disparate characters than Trump, a stinking rich Fifth Avenue property developer always mocked by his city’s (and country’s) elite for his vulgarity, among other sins — and Malcolm Turnbull, who is the ultimate creature of his Wentworth electorate and its far more discreet sort of insider power.

Two businessmen, yes, but with very different ways of doing business.

And the whole thing does rather put the lie to Turnbull’s earlier assertions that the call went well (as well as Trump’s Twitter shout-out at the time — “Thank you to Prime Minister of Australia for telling the truth about our very civil conversation that FAKE NEWS media lied about. Very nice!”)

Thank you to Prime Minister of Australia for telling the truth about our very civil conversation that FAKE NEWS media lied about. Very nice!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 3, 2017

Much has already been made of Trump’s behaviour in the transcript, which reads at times like he’s still building casinos and trying to bully his way into a better deal on gold gilt.

And much to his credit, Turnbull did his best to stand up for the agreement to get refugees into the United States and his succinct explanation of why Australian multiculturalism works: “So what we say is, we will decide which people get to come to Australia who are refugees, economic migrants, businessmen, whatever. We decide. That is our decision. We are a generous multicultural immigration nation like the United States but the government decides, the people’s representatives decides.”

Indeed, this may have made something of an impression with news this week that Trump is seeking to ditch America’s chaotic immigration system for something that seems at first glance to borrow from Australia’s generous but ordered points-based system.

But it’s also hard to say that Turnbull was operating in completely good faith here, either.

Never forget that the refugee “deal” Trump kicked back against was brokered with the previous administration — when all the smart money was on a Hillary Clinton win.

Just two blokes with a lot in common, such as, they’re both businessmen. (Pic: AFP/Brendan Smialowski)

At the time, the government denied that it was in any way a people swap, though plenty have pointed out that Turnbull pretty much told Trump it was (“Basically, we are taking people from the previous administration that they were very keen on getting out of the United States. We will take more. We will take anyone that you want us to take.”).

Of course, Trump is hardly the first president to be dismissed as a vulgarian. Nixon cursed like a sailor.

In 1829, populist president Andrew Jackson held an open house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that, legend has it, only the promise of more free liquor down the road could lure the crowd out of the building before they stripped it bare.

And for sheer crudity, you’d be hard-pressed to find a president more scatological than Lyndon Johnson, who could even make ordering pants (search LBJ Orders Pants on YouTube and put on headphones or send the kids out of the room before listening) a study in blue.

Really, it’s a question of style as much as substance.