Insiders compare Donald Trump’s private calls with Vladimir Putin to ‘two guys in a steam bath’
Donald Trump’s calls to world leaders revealed in astonishing leak to Watergate’s Bernstein: He and Vladimir Putin are like ‘two guys in a steam bath,’ he trashes Obama AND Bush as ‘don’t know BS,’ and called Angela Merkel ‘stupid’ and Theresa May weak
- Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein spoke with sources about months’ worth of private Trump calls with world leaders
- Putin ‘outplays’ Trump in their private calls, said a source
- Trump brought up his own wealth and recalled Miss Universe Moscow pageant with Russian
- Told Germany’s Angela Merkel she was ‘stupid’
- Characterized his predecessors as ‘imbeciles’ and weaklings’ with Putin
- U.S. officials who saw call transcripts were gobsmacked
- Sources called them ‘abominations’
- Leaked Transcript of call with Ukrainian leader showed Trump seeking an investigation of the Bidens
- Australian Prime Minister Scott was regularly ‘bullied’ and disparaged during calls with Trump
By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.s. Political Editor For Dailymail.com
Published: 19:05 EDT, 29 June 2020 | Updated: 03:20 EDT, 30 June 2020
President Donald Trump‘s private calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin sometimes have the tone of ‘two guys in a steam bath,’ according a bombshell account that portrays Trump as bending over backward to win the strongman’s approval.
Putin ‘just outplays’ Trump during their one-on-one interactions, according to a CNN report published Monday by legendary Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein. During those calls and others with foreign leaders, Trump regularly tries to tout his own wealth and success, according to the report.
At the same time, with Putin he routinely characterizes his predecessors as ‘imbeciles’ and weaklings.’
Trump also told Theresa May she was ‘weak’ and called German leader Angela Merkel ‘stupid’ to her face in a series of ‘demeaning’ encounters with female leaders, the report claims.
President Donald Trump characterized his predecessors as ‘imbeciles’ and weaklings’ during private calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a new report by Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein
Trump’s ‘demeaning’ attacks on female leaders May and Merkel
Donald Trump ‘demeaned and denigrated’ his female counterparts in ‘near-sadistic’ meetings, the CNN report says.
The president told former UK prime minister Theresa May that she was weak and lacked courage and would ‘get nasty with her’ on the phone, one of Bernstein’s sources said.
Trump is also said to have called her a ‘fool’ and said her approach to Brexit, NATO and immigration policy was ‘spineless’.
One source said Trump had deliberately ‘intimidated’ May who became ‘flustered and nervous’ in response.
By contrast, German chancellor Angela Merkel remained calm in the face of Trump’s aggression when they met at the White House in 2018 and ‘countered his bluster’ on the phone by reciting facts, the report says.
Trump allegedly called Merkel ‘stupid’ to her face and his phone calls were described by German officials as ‘very aggressive’.
German sources said the calls were so extraordinary that special steps had been taken in Berlin to keep them secret.
He also took a ‘personally demeaning’ tone with Merkel in a row over Germany’s NATO contributions – focusing on this instead of the alleged Russian poison plot in Britain which his staff were urging him to discuss, the report says.
The revelations about the calls are contained in a deeply sourced – though thinly quoted – account by legendary Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein.
Trump won office in 2016 despite media criticism of his repeated praise for Putin, even as Russia was revealed by U.S. intelligence to be orchestrating an election interference and hacking campaign.
They are part of a web of Trump calls to the leaders of Australia, Turkey, Canada, Australia and western European countries during his presidency that officials who see call transcripts describe as ‘abominations.’
In addition to repeatedly building up his own wealth, as he has done repeatedly in public, Trump would revel in his time running the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, according to the account.
Trump had touted a meeting with Putin at the event, although it evidently never happened.
A source trashed the calls, saying that while Putin destabilizes the West, Trump ‘sits there and thinks he can build himself up enough as a businessman and tough guy that Putin will respect him.’
The report came out Monday, days after the New York Times reported that Trump was briefed on intelligence that Moscow had paid a bounty to Taliban elements for killings of American soldiers.
The White House on Monday denied Trump was briefed about the reported program.
Trump was described as solicitous of Putin in the calls. Putin is known as a crafty former KGB operator who often holds back in televised encounters with counterparts.
Two sources said Trump seems ‘delusional’ on his foreign leader calls, which included frequent contact with Turkey’s dictator Recep Erdogan.
Trump would go after his U.S. predecessors in the calls with Erdogan and Putin, who have both used political power to crush dissent.
‘They didn’t know BS,’ Trump said of nemesis Barack Obama and George W. Bush.
Donald Trump told former UK prime minister Theresa May (pictured together on a presidential visit to London in 2019) that she was weak and lacked courage, it is claimed
German chancellor Angela Merkel remained calm in the face of Trump’s aggression, sources said (they are pictured together at a G7 summit last year)
Erdogan’s hotline to Trump
Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan was fast-tracked through to Trump when he called the White House, sources say.
Erdogan bypassed the usual protocols on Trump’s orders – and even reached the president on the golf course.
White House aides even feared that Turkish security agents in the US were observing Trump’s schedule so that Erdogan would know when to call.
In their conversations, Erdogan exploited Trump’s lack of knowledge about the Middle East and ‘took him to the cleaners’, sources say.
But Trump would also rage at Erdogan over trade and the fate of a US pastor who was arrested in Turkey.
Trump’s calls included frequent derisive comments directly to prominent female national leaders – including German Chancelor Angela Merkel, who has topped the Forbes list of the world’s most powerful woman.
“Some of the things he said to Angela Merkel are just unbelievable: he called her ‘stupid,’ and accused her of being in the pocket of the Russians,’ according to a source.
Calls with May and Merkel were ‘near-sadistic,’ according to a source for the story.
Trump has repeatedly gone after Merkel publicly over a planned Nord Stream pipeline to pump gas from Russia to Germany.
Trump has also blasted Germany for failing to meet a 2 per cent NATO commitment on defense spending, which Trump calls ‘dues.’
The calls with Merkel were deemed so unusual that German officials listening in Berlin kept their contents within a tight group.
‘It’s just a small circle of people who are involved and the reason, the main reason, is that they are indeed problematic,’ a source told Bernstein.
Trump had regular calls with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (pictured together at the White House in November last year)
Calls with May and Merkel were ‘near-sadistic,’ according to a source for the story
, Australian Prime Minister Scott was regularly ‘bullied’ and disparaged during calls with Trump, according to the report
Former chief of staff John Kelly has called the calls damaging to national security in private conversations, according to the report.
Trump’s conversations with former British Prime Minister Theresa May were described as ‘humiliating and bullying.’
Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was regularly ‘bullied’ and disparaged in a hostile and aggressive way during calls with Trump, along with Mr Macron and Mr Trudeau, according to the report.
Sources said calls with the Australian prime minister, as well as those with the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Australia and Canada, typically began with Trump establishing a grievance.
‘With almost every problem, all it takes [in his phone calls] is someone asking him to do something as President on behalf of the United States and he doesn’t see it that way, he goes to being ripped off,’ a US official said.
A spokesman for Mr Morrison denied the claims, saying: ‘The Prime Minister has only ever had polite, respectful and positive calls with the President’.
Sources said there are records of the calls taken by professional notetakers, along with voice-generated computer texts.
Detailed notes of Trump’s call with the president of Ukraine became a prime feature of his impeachment. Trump said the call was ‘perfect,’ but Democrats blasted him for trying to pressure a government to investigate his political rival.
