Remember earlier in the year? Remember the phone call where Trump didn’t hang up on Trumble, but the call ended “amiably” thirty-five minutes short of its allotted time. I guess that must have been because they’d run out of things to talk about.
“So this is the worst deal ever,” says Trump.
“Yes, but I still want you to honour it,” says Turnbull.
“For sure, what’s the weather like down your way?”
“Fine, quite warm actually but it’s always like that at this time of year, and I wouldn’t put it down to climate change.”
“Of course not, we all know that climate change is a Chinese plot.”
“Down here in Australia, Malcolm Roberts tells us it’s a NASA conspiracy, so does this mean that you’re working with them?”
“I’ll look in to it. How’s your wife? Matilda, is it?”
“No, Lucy. She’s well. Melania, is she well?”
“Wouldn’t know. I haven’t had time to speak to her lately.”
“Well then…”
“Right…”
“We’ve got another thirty-five minutes to go. Perhaps we should discuss something like the TPP.”
“Ah, that’s not gonna happen so there’s no point!”
“The ANZUS alliance then?”
“What’s that?”
“Um… Look, maybe you should get back to your briefings.”
“Ok. Good to hear from you Malcolm.”
“Thanks. Look forward to working with you. Love you.”
“Love you, too, Malcolm. I can’t wait till we meet.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Mm, yeah. Doesn’t really sound all that plausible, does it?
After all, soon after the fake news leaked about Trump hanging up…
As an aside, can fake news leak? If it’s fake, then how can something that doesn’t exist leak?
Whatever, soon after, we were treated to stories of how Turnbull “stood up” to Trump in the same sort of way he normally stands up to billionaires. He stares them down with his withering gaze. And while some people were unkind enough to ask why he didn’t do the same to the likes of Cory Bernardi or George Christensen, I saw no reason to disbelieve the story. While you lefties were mocking Malcolm, our best PM ever, I said that I couldn’t imagine Tony Abbott standing up to the POTUS like that and isn’t it great that we have a real man in The Lodge. That’s not being sexist. I always thought of Julia as a real man, even though she was a woman, so the politically correct brigade can just shut up because this is Australia and I have free speech.
Anyway, this is my mea culpa. I have to apologise because it seems that Malcolm didn’t stand up to Donald at all. No, we’re now being told that the phone call was just as peachy as my dialogue above. As Trump said at the recent face-to-face meeting with Turnbull:
“We get along great. We have a fantastic relationship, I love Australia, I always have…We had a great call.I mean, we’re not babies.”
To which Turnbull added: “Young at heart.” Which I presume was in response to the babies comment and not a request for a song. Turnbull went further later, telling the media: “We have backgrounds that are similar in many respects, businessmen that found our way into politics. It was very, very warm — as I said — more family than formal.”
Mm, so Malcolm feels that Donald is like family and he’s suggesting that he has a lot in common with him. I guess that’s why he felt it necessary to hold out his hand to offer congratulations for the vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act (“Obamcare”). He did it because he felt that the T-Rump is like a brother and not because he thinks it’s a great thing to make those wretched poor people pay a fortune for medical care.
Because we all know how strongly Malcolm feels about a strong public health system, and we know that he’d never have an plans to wind back on Australia’s Medicare system. And we can believe that because we’ve been told. To even suggest such a thing would make him very cross. Remember election night? That’s when he got as cross as Donald did over the refugee deal.
Oh wait, that’s right. Donald didn’t get cross at all. We’ve been told!
