President Trump told Mexico's president that a proposed border wall between the two countries was "the least important thing we are talking about," according to a transcript of the January call published by the Washington Post on Thursday.
The Post said it obtained the transcripts of Trump’s talks with President Enrique Peña Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull from White House staff.
During the call with Peña Nieto, held just a week after Trump took office, the new president told the Mexican leader to stop saying Mexico would never pay for the wall.
The wall had been a signature issue for the Trump campaign. which insisted that Mexico would pay for it.
"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 can't live with that," he said.
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."
The two leaders also discussed the politics of the border wall and the "tough hombres" that Trump has said are driving the Mexican drug trade.
Here are some of the transcript's choice quotes from Trump.
In a Jan. 28 call with the Australian leader, which did not go well and ended abruptly, Trump touched on a different sort of immigration policy.
He said that an agreement by the two countries for the U.S. to resettle as many as 1,250 asylum seekers in Australian custody would "kill" him politically.
But Turnbull reminded the president that a deal for the U.S. to take the asylum seekers had already been agreed to.
“There is nothing more important in business or politics than 'a deal is a deal,'” Turnbull said. “You can certainly say that it was not a deal that you would have done, but you are going to stick with it.”
Excerpts from Trump's remarks during that call:
Turnbull responded, "[N]one of these people are from the conflict zone. They are basically economic refugees from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. That is the vast bulk of them. They have been under our supervision for over three years now and we know exactly everything about them."
When Trump wanted the call to end, half an hour earlier than scheduled, he chastised the Australian leader:
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