Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has insisted that a deal struck with the Obama administration that would allow mostly Muslim refugees rejected by Australia to be resettled in the United States was still on, despite President Donald Trump dubbing the agreement “dumb” and vowing to review it.
The conflicting messages came hours after The Washington Post published a story detailing a tense exchange between Mr. Trump and Mr. Turnbull during their first telephone call as national leaders.
The newspaper reported that during the call, an angry Trump dubbed the agreement “the worst deal ever” and accused Mr. Turnbull of seeking to export the “next Boston bombers” — a reference to Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, U.S. citizens born in Kyrgyzstan who set off two bombs at the 2013 Boston marathon.
