Politics

Malcolm Turnbull Secretly Roasted Donald Trump And The Leaked Footage Is Wild

We're going to get nuked.

by Chris Woods  15 June 2017

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

Now this is more like it.

After two years of Malcolm Turnbull kowtowing to the hard-right, backtracking on a marriage equality plebiscite, defending offshore detention centres, and nationalistic dogwhistling, we finally have proof that he might, in fact, be a human being.

Last night Turnbull gave a supposedly off-the-record impression of the great and terrible Donald Trump at Parliament House’s Midwinter Ball. The annual charity event is hosted by press gallery journalists but everything that goes on is supposed to stay secret. Luckily for us, Nine’s political editor, Laurie Oakes, doesn’t give a toss about the dinner and doesn’t believe reporting should be banned at events hosted by journalists. And he’s managed to get his hands on a video of the incident.

So thanks to a sneaky Ball attendee (Tony Abbott??) and Laurie Oakes we now have evidence of Turnbull’s extremely solid impression of the flakiest US President in history.

Turnbull kicks things off by describing their unbelievably awkward first chat as “Beautiful. It was the most beautiful putting-me-at-ease ever,” before getting into the good stuff:

“The Donald and I, we are winning and winning in the polls. We are winning so much, we are winning, we are winning like we have never won before,” Turnbull joked. “We are winning in the polls. We are! We are.”

“Wait, is this happy? How the hell am I feeling happy, I thought Tony ate all my happy??”

“Not the fake polls. Not the fake polls!” Turnbull continued, to an increasingly rowdy audience. “They’re the ones we’re not winning in. We’re winning in the real polls. You know, the online polls. They are so easy to win. I know that. Did you know that? I kind of know that.”

“They are so easy to win. I have this Russian guy. Believe me, it’s true. It is true.”

“They love me! Why, the only thing that could ruin this is if one of these many journalists also had some kind of recording device.”

Look the jokes are pretty basic but they at least demonstrate some level of Turnbull’s self awareness. Plus, the online poll dig is pulled off pretty well!

Of course, the PM could cop a goddamn grilling over this rare display of humour when he next catches up with The Donald. That is, if we even survive the upcoming nuclear onslaught.

But until this inevitably blows up, give Nine’s entire exclusive vid a squiz here. You owe it to yourself.