White House move to Sprint behind "worst call yet?"

AROUND THE BLOCK

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Trump says talk with Australian P.M. “worst call yet” 

Was bad call due to policy differences or technical difficulties: “Can you hear me now?"

(Huatulco, Mexico) In what President Donald Trump has characterized as the worst call he’s had with a foreign leader, the President hung up on Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull after what the White House characterized as “harsh words” over refugee policy.

Trump, who spoke with four other world leaders that day, later characterized it as the "worst call so far.”

Around the Block has learned that while the call was contentious, the real reason Mr. Trump hung up was because the two were having trouble communicating due to technical difficulties.

According to sources in the White House and at the Australian Foreign Ministry, the call was frequently punctuated by one or the other leader saying “I didn’t understand, you’re breaking up,” or  “Can you hear me now?

Apparently the problem stems from the move of the Trump administration to change telecom providers to save money.

Moved by Sprint commercials the President saw while watching late night TV that claimed the Sprint network quality was within 1% of Verizon’s, the White House moved their phone systems to Sprint in a move to save “millions and millions of dollars.”

As the call with Mr. Turnbull was the first to be made on the newly installed Sprint network, it appears that the 1% difference can impact foreign relations.

Following the call with the Prime Minister, Mr. Trump personally placed a call to the Sprint spokesman, Paul Marcarelli, who formerly was Verizon’s “can you hear me now?” man. During the call Mr. Trump invoked his trademark “you’re fired” rebuke to the Sprint spokesman who replied, “Sorry, you’re breaking up.

We cannot confirm if the President tried another “you’re fired” and “can you hear me now?” before he hung up on Marcarelli. 

Given that it is not positive that Marcarelli actually heard he was fired, the White House has promised that Marcarelli's firing will be confirmed in a tweet by President Trump later in the day, as Twitter, not phone calling, is the President's favored form of communication.