from the leaked transcript of the January call with Australian PM Turnbull.

Turnbull spends pretty much the entire call trying to convince Trump to honor a deal Obama made to vet and potentially take in 1,250 - 2,000 refugees who arrived in Australia by boat. A key point is that the US doesn't even have to take in any of these individuals, it just has to uphold the part of the deal to at least vet them for potential acceptance. Turnbull explains that Australia strictly enforces law to not accept people who arrive by boat in order to deter human smugglers and people making dangerous, potentially deadly, trips by boat to the country seeking refuge.

Trump continues to not understand/grasp these concepts throughout the call, despite numerous attempts by Turnbull to explain them.

As part of this deal, Australia will, in return, take refugees the US does not want. At one point, Turnbull says, "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. The only people that we do not take are people who come by boat. So we would rather take a not very attractive guy that help you out then to take a Noble [sic] Peace Prize winner that comes by boat."

So Turnbull says that Australia will offer up even more than the deal they already agreed to. If you read the whole transcript, you can practically hear the frustrated exasperation in his voice and get the sense that at that point in the conversation, he's just about ready to offer up anything under the sun that Trump might want, if Trump will just honor the deal the US already agreed to.

Even the shittiest of negotiators would absolutely POUNCE on that situation and really push the limits to see just how much Turnbull would be willing to give up, whether related to refugees or any other topic in the world.

But instead, our President, the self-proclaimed best negotiator of all time, replied with:

"What is the thing with boats? Why do you discriminate against boats?"



Link to full transcript below (Turnbull call transcript below Pena Nieto call transcript).