GOP senator: Trump phone call leaker needs to be fired

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is calling on the Trump administration to hunt down and fire the person responsible for leaking transcripts on Thursday of President Trump’s first phone calls with Mexico’s and Australia’s leaders.

“Whoever leaked these needs to be found out and needs to be reprimanded,” Lee said on Fox News. “This is unacceptable and should never happen.”

The transcripts of Trump’s January calls with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull were obtained by The Washington Post and posted online Thursday.

{mosads}

Trump and his allies have repeatedly decried the leaks of sensitive — and, at times, embarrassing — information from within the White House and have vowed to crackdown on those caught divulging such information.

The transcripts reveal the president’s contentious first conversations with the foreign leaders. In his call with Turnbull, for example, Trump berated the prime minister over a deal agreed to under former President Obama in which the U.S. would consider accepting 1,250 economic refugees.

“This is going to kill me,” Trump said. “I am the world’s greatest person that does not want to let people into the country. And now I am agreeing to take 2,000 people and I agree I can vet them, but that puts me in a bad position.”

And during his call with Peña Nieto, Trump urged the Mexican leader to stop saying publicly that his country would not pay for Trump’s proposed border wall.

“What I would like to recommend is — if we are going to have continued dialogue — we will work out the wall,” Trump said. “They are going to say, ‘who is going to pay for the wall, Mr. President?’ to both of us, and we should both say, ‘we will work it out.’ “