After an enigmatic few months, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and US President Donald Trump finally committed to their first date last Thursday in New York City. The pair- Abbreviated to TNT, although far more explosive, have been applauded for trying to make their long distance relationship work.
Earlier this year in January, a preliminary phone call between the two ended badly, after a flirtatious game of ‘no you hang up first, no youuu hang up first’ turned sour. In keeping with Australian political etiquette, the personal call has been attributed as a work expense.
Mr. Turnbull, who is in dire need of a political distraction after his controversial decision not to nominate Kevin Rudd for Mr. Gay Universe still looms, was anxious for the date to go well, and waited gingerly outside the SS Intrepid battleship in New York City for his counterpart to arrive.
In a scene much akin to the pilot episode of Grace and Frankie, the two leaders shared a meal and lauded each other across the dinner table, and a risqué Mr. Trump asked ‘who ordered the potato coquettes?’, when referring to Melania and Lucy Turnbull.
Shortly after the entrees arrived, Mr. Trump unexpectedly revealed to an off-guard Mr. Turnbull that he now supports gay marriage. Reports have speculated that a large ‘clink’ noise during the meal was not an aircon malfunction, but was in fact the penny finally dropping inside Mr. Trump’s head, the noise being amplified by the large empty cavity between his ears, were a brain should usually reside. His statement has been greeted as good news, however his logic was rather contentious.
After staring blankly and making swirls in his rapidly cooling bisque soup, the President elaborated;
“It’s always the man who buys an engagement ring, am I right? So if you have two guys, they’re each going to buy an engagement ring, so that’s double the amount of engagement rings. Helloooo! We should be sending these guys in their thousands, to the jewellers’’.
Gold prices have surged.
As the night progressed the two leaders’ amour became more apparent, and while discussing military issues, a mildly tipsy Mr. Turnbull gave a flutter of his eyelids, and after complementing the US on their naval bases, suggested for their next meeting they should ‘go to third base’. The President’s spoke with an equally risqué tone, and he cheekily suggested that could be possibly after a ‘debriefing session’, and referred to himself as the ‘Commando in Chief’.
With the evening drawing to a close, the US President attempted to show some solidarity with the LGBT community, and audaciously got down on one knew to mock propose to the Australia PM. However Mr. Turnbull was unable to kneel, quoting back pain, which was later confirmed by his chiropractor who attributed the condition to ‘sitting uncomfortably on the marriage plebiscite for so long’. Alas, the media stunt backfired, as the thought of these two prominent figures getting marriage sent such shivers through the nation’s population that it was picked up on several Pacific seismic monitoring stations, and caused a minor earthquake in Broome, injuring three.
Trump’s aids hailed the date as a ‘great success for America’, with the President winning three gold stars to put on the White House refrigerator for pronouncing his first five syllable word of his presidency, ‘co-op-er-a-tion’. Canberra lauded the evening as ‘delightfully ambiguous, with so many sound bites delivered that neither head of state had room for desert’.
And as the two leaders whizzed off into the night sharing a cab, leaving Lucy and Melania to find their own way home, you can’t help but think:
US-Australian relationships have never been so good.
Conor Duggan
