Donald Trump has disparaged Australian cardboard billionaire Anthony Pratt, labeling him “a red-headed weirdo from Australia” after recordings of the Visy Industries chair detailing his dealings with the former US president were leaked.
Mr Trump posted the derogatory description on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday after it was reported that he had discussed classified information about the US submarine fleet with Mr Pratt, who then shared it with a number of business, media and government contacts.
“The New York Times’ failed story… about a red-headed weirdo from Australia named Anthony Pratt is Fake News,” Trump wrote.
“I never talked to him about submarines, but I did talk to him about creating jobs in Ohio and Pennsylvania because that’s what I care about: JOBS, A GREAT ECONOMY, LOW TAXES, NO INFLATION, ENERGY, DOMINANCE, STRONG BORDERS, NO ENDLESS WARS, LOW INTEREST RATE, and much more!’
Donald Trump (photo left) opens a Pratt Paper Plant in Ohio together with Anthony Pratt in 2019
Mr. Pratt, who is also executive chairman of Pratt Industries, is a member of Trump’s exclusive Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where the couple met when the business mogul-turned-politician was in the White House from 2017 to 2021.
On Sunday night, 60 Minutes aired secret recordings leaked by Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton.
Mr. Pratt describes with a mixture of admiration and amazement some of the incidents he experienced with Mr. Trump and also provides pithy character assessments.
‘He’s outrageous. He just says what he wants. And he likes to shock people,” Pratt says in one clip.
In another piece of audio, Mr. Pratt describes Mr. Trump’s actions within the law.
“He knows exactly what to say and what not to say so he avoids jail, but he comes so close that it looks to everyone like he’s breaking the law,” Pratt said.
Trump did not spare Mr Pratt’s feelings as he responded to the accusation he told the Australian about US submarine secrets
“Like he’s not going to go up to someone and say, ‘I want you to kill someone.’
“What he’ll say, he’ll send someone to tell someone to kill someone.”
Mr. Pratt also provides a telling insight into Mr. Trump’s relationship with his wife, Melania Trump, who is a former model and sat next to him at a dinner.
“He (Mr. Trump) said, ‘I asked Melania to walk around the pool in her bikini so all the other guys could see what they were missing,’” Pratt recalled.
‘Then Melania said back to him: ‘I will if you walk around with me in a bikini.’
According to Pratt, Trump revealed a private conversation he had with Iraqi President Barham Salih in 2019.
“He (Mr. Trump) said, ‘I just bombed Iraq today. And the president of Iraq called me and said, you just leveled my city.”
Trump then boasted that his answer was: ‘Okay, what are you going to do about it?’.
Trump also reportedly told Mr. Pratt that he had called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and pressured him to investigate the business dealings of Hunter Biden, the son of his Democratic rival and eventual successor in the Oval Office, Joe Biden .
Trump with his wife Melania, about whom he told a humiliating story, according to Pratt
“And Trump said, ‘You know that phone call in Ukraine?’ That was nothing compared to what I usually do,” Mr. Pratt said.
Trump’s bid to return to the White House is jeopardized by the slew of legal charges he faces after being arrested four times this year.
The fourth arrest at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta in August led to his historic mugshot when shared on Xformerly known as Twitter.
In all, he faces 44 federal charges and 47 state charges in the four separate trials involving mishandling of classified documents and alleged attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss.