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SYDNEY, Australia – Newly-elected U.S. President Donald Trump turned on former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull just days after taking office over a deal by the U.S. to take 1,250 Australian asylum seekers.

Mr Trump was furious about the deal and was intent on backing out of it.

Turnbull was tipped off prior to the first-ever phone call between the two leaders not to mention the deal. Vice President Mike Pence had phoned then-Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to warn her the president had changed his mind. He had previously indicated, in December, prior to being sworn in, he would honor the deal.

The revelations have come to light in Mr Turnbull’s new book ‘A Bigger Picture,’ excerpts of which were published by The Sydney Morning Herald on Monday.

“I spoke with Trump’s incoming chief of staff, Reince Priebus, on 7 December (2016) and he gave me every impression they’d stick with the deal,” Mr Turnbull wrote, adding he had eceived a similar assurance from Mr Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

The deal to resettle asylum seekers from Manus Island and Nauru, had been negotiated with Turnbull and former U.S. President Barack Obama.

When Mr Trump opened up about the deal, and went into a lengthy tirade deriding it, Turnbull said a colleague of his listening in on the call turned white with horror. “As his anger rose, Trump kept talking over the top of me, with more intensity,” Turnbull said.

The deal, and the phone call that discussed it caused considerable angst and speculation in Australia and the U.S. Both leaders at the time played down the ferocity of the call, however within hours of it Mr Trump took to Twitter to deride the deal again. “Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!” he tweeted.

Turnbull says in his book he had been told by President Obama that Trump would not be elected.

“Don’t worry, Malcolm. The American people will never elect a lunatic to sit in this office,” Turnbull quoted Obama as saying.

“Don’t worry, Malcolm. The American people will never elect a lunatic to sit in this office.”

The dispute simmered for some months until Turnbull flew to New York in May 2017 for a joint Australia-U.S. commemoration of the Battle of the Coral Sea.

“When Trump arrived, he was accompanied by Rudy Giuliani and Rupert Murdoch,” Mr Turnbull wrote.

“His deference to Murdoch was greater than I’ve ever seen from any Australian politician and was in marked contrast to the high-handed way Trump treats most people.”

“When he asked me if Rupert could join us for our bilateral discussion between leaders, I told him that wasn’t a good idea,” Turnbull said.

“He talked about Kerry Packer a lot; he knew I’d been Kerry’s lawyer and ‘kept him out of jail’, something Donald mentioned every time we met.”

At one point the U.S. president asked his wife Melania, to join the talks, and laughed about the spate over the refugee deal.

“Melania, do you know, Malcolm has 2,000 of the worst terrorists in the world locked up on a desert island and that fool Obama agreed to take them?” Mr Trump said.

“And now Malcolm has talked me into taking them, too.”

Mr Turnbull described the conversation as “surreal.”

In another conversation, this time involving French President Emmanuel Macron, Mr Trump again referred to the asylum seekers as ‘terrorists.’ Turnbull says he wearily insisted they were not terrorists.

“Oh, yes, they are,” Mr Trump replied. “They are the worst, and that fool Obama the worst president EVER agreed to take them to America. Can you believe that? Would you take them, Emmanuel?”

Mr Turnbull says the French President opened his mouth but did not say anything.

The Australian prime minister thought he was in hot water again when he impersonated Mr Trump at a function put on by the Canberra Press Gallery, when word leaked of the impersonation. The president however laughed it off.

“So, you’ve been having a little fun at my expense, Malcolm?” he said, according to Mr Turnbull’s account in The Sydney Morning Herald. “It’s not bad. Lots of people think you are better than Alec Baldwin.”

(Photos credits: Rex/Shutterstock | Stefan Postles, Getty Images).