Day 14: Trump Brags About Election Win Before Hanging Up on Australia

Just a casual day for the top diplomat in the United States, Donald Trump. He spoke with leaders from around the world. Two conversations have made big headlines.

First, was his conversation with Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto. Trump may or may not have threatened to send American troops into Mexico to deal with some “bad hombres.” No big deal, right?

Then, Trump called Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Australia, you may recall, is one of America’s staunchest allies. Investment, trade, war: Australia and the United States have stood at each others’ sides through all of it.

Trump and Turnbull were expected to speak for an hour. The conversation lasted less than 30 minutes.

Trump was upset that he was being asked to honor a deal to take in 1,250 refugees from an Australian detention center. As the Washington Post reported:

Trump, who one day earlier had signed an executive order temporarily barring the admission of refugees, complained that he was “going to get killed” politically and accused Australia of seeking to export the “next Boston bombers.”

Putting aside the abject racism that any immigrant or refugee is going to be the next terrorist, the bombers were born in Kyrgyzstan, a Soviet nation not on Trump’s refugee ban list.

The 1,250 refugees have been held in horrible conditions. The U.S. volunteered to take half of, “provided they passed U.S. security screening.”

Before abruptly ending the call, Trump informed Turnbull that the discussion was “the worst call by far” of the five conversations with foreign leaders that day.

However, Trump’s conversations seem to have one thing in common:

Even in conversations marred by hostile exchanges, Trump manages to work in references to his election accomplishments. U.S. officials said that he used his calls with Turnbull and Peña Nieto to mention his election win or the size of the crowd at his inauguration.

Alliances be damned; for Trump everything funnels back to Trump’s election day insecurities and political optics.

14 days in, 1448 to go

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