Transcripts Show How Contentious Trump’s Calls Were With Mexican and Australian Leaders

Mr. Trump too was conscious of his own position: “On the wall, you and I both have political problem. 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. But the fact is we are both in a little bit of a political bind because I have to have Mexico pay for the wall. I have to. I have been talking about it for a two-year period.”

.. Mr. Peña Nieto told Mr. Trump that he had put him in a bad position. “You have a very big mark on our back, Mr. President, regarding who pays for the wall,” he said. “This is what I suggest, Mr. President: Let us stop talking about the wall.”

He added that he understood that any country had the right to protect its border. “But my position has been and will continue to be very firm saying that Mexico cannot pay for that wall.”

.. “It is not because they are bad people,” Mr. Turnbull said. “It is because in order to stop people-smugglers, we have to deprive them of the product.” Australia by policy, he said, refuses to accept refugees who arrive by boat because it would encourage smugglers to keep charging desperate people to bring them there.
.. “I will be honest with you, I hate taking these people,” Mr. 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.”
.. “Mr. President, I think this will make you look like a man who stands by the commitments of the United States.”

Mr. Trump was not buying it. “O.K., this shows me to be a dope,” he said. “I am not like this but if I have to do it, I will do it, but I do not like this at all.”

He said that he worried that the terrorists like those who killed Americans in Boston, San Bernardino and New York could be admitted to the country: “I am going to get killed on this thing.”

“You will not,” Mr. Turnbull insisted.

“Yes, I will be seen as a weak and ineffective leader in my first week by these people. This is a killer.”