Someone leaked full transcripts from a few of Trump's January phone calls to foreign leaders
Trump urged Mexican president to end his public defiance on border wall, transcript reveals
The Post has obtained transcripts of President Trump’s January phone conversations with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
But in his first White House call with Mexico’s president, Trump described his vow to charge Mexico as a growing political problem, pressuring the Mexican leader to stop saying publicly that his government would never pay.
“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.”
The Jan. 28 call with Turnbull became particularly acrimonious. “I have had it,” Trump erupted after the two argued about an agreement on refugees. “I have been making these calls all day, and this is the most unpleasant call all day.”
Before ending the call, Trump noted that at least one of his conversations that day had gone far more smoothly. “Putin was a pleasant call,” Trump said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “This is ridiculous.”
But there was little discussion of the substance of those plans or their implications for U.S. relations with Australia and Mexico. Instead, Trump’s overriding concern seemed to center on how any approach would reflect on him.
“This is going to kill me,” he said to Turnbull. “I am the world’s greatest person that does not want to let people into the country. And now I am agreeing to take 2,000 people.”
Trump spent much of his call with Peña Nieto seeking to enlist the Mexican president in a deal to stop talking about how the wall would be paid for. Two days earlier, Trump had signed an executive order mandating construction of the wall, but funding for it remains unclear.
“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.”
To solve that problem, Trump pressured Peña Nieto to suppress the issue. When pressed on who would pay for the wall, “We should both say, ‘We will work it out.’ It will work out in the formula somehow,” Trump said. “As opposed to you saying, ‘We will not pay,’ and me saying, ‘We will not pay.’ ”
Peña Nieto resisted, saying that Trump’s repeated threats had placed “a very big mark on our back, Mr. President.” He warned that “my position has been and will continue to be very firm, saying that Mexico cannot pay for the wall.”
Trump objected: “But you cannot say that to the press. The press is going to go with that, and I cannot live with that.”
Trump also lashed out at Peña Nieto over the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.
“We have a massive drug problem where kids are becoming addicted to drugs because the drugs are being sold for less money than candy,” Trump said. “I won New Hampshire because New Hampshire is a drug-infested den.”
Note: Trump lost New Hampshire, and probably won't win it next time
He described Mexican drug cartel leaders as “pretty tough hombres” and promised U.S. military support, saying that “maybe your military is afraid of them, but our military is not.”
Peña Nieto responded by saying that drug trafficking in Mexico is “largely supported by the illegal amounts of money and weapons coming from the United States.”
Trump also threatened to impose tariffs of up to 35 percent on imports from Mexico, saying that as president he had been given “tremendous taxation powers for trade,” even though tariffs are mainly the province of Congress.
Despite the friction, Trump at other moments sought to sweet-talk Peña Nieto, telling him that “you and I will always be friends,” and that if they could resolve their disputes over the border and trade, “We will almost become the fathers of our country — almost, not quite, okay?”
On refugees to Turnbull:
“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.
Trump only became angrier, saying the refugees could “become the Boston bomber in five years.”
“I think it is a horrible deal, a disgusting deal that I would have never made,” Trump said. “As far as I am concerned, that is enough, Malcolm. I have had it.”
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