New York: The Trump White House has given its clearest public acknowledgement yet that it will honour a refugee agreement made with Australia, even as the president's official spokesman got the name of Australia's prime minister wrong for the second day in a row.
Donald Trump's press secretary Sean Spicer was asked about a visit to the White House by the Australian ambassador to the United States, Joe Hockey, as well as the status of the deal during his daily press briefing on Friday.
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Our PM has a new name
Listen as White House press secretary Sean Spicer mispronounces Malcolm Turnbull's name, leaving it to a colleague to get it right.
Mr Hockey met with Mr Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon and chief of staff Reince Priebus on Thursday to affirm relations between the two long-time allies after an unusually tense and uncertain couple of days.
Tensions arose after revelations on Wednesday about a heated phone conversation between Malcolm Turnbull and Mr Trump over an agreement struck by the Obama administration for the US to resettle over a thousand refugees being held in offshore detention centres - a deal Mr Trump went on to describe as a "dumb deal" in a Twitter spray on Wednesday night.
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Mr Spicer said though the meeting with Mr Hockey had been productive.
"They did have a very productive and candid conversation," Mr Spicer said during the daily White House briefing on Friday.
"We have a tremendous amount of respect for the people of Australia, for Prime Minister Trunbull."
It was the second day in a row Mr Spicer has incorrectly named the Australian leader.
Mr Spicer went on to say in the clearest terms yet that they would honour the agreement to vet 1250 refugees being held on Manus Island and Nauru, though he made no commitment about resettlement.
"We're going to honour the commitments that we've made in some way, meaning that we are going to vet these people in accordance with the agreement that happened and we'll continue to have further updates as we do."
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Mr Trump cut short his phone conversation with Mr Turnbull over the weekend, telling him it was his "worst call yet" and accusing him of trying to send the next "Boston bombers" to the US. Suggesting that refugees, particularly from Syria, posed a security threat to the US was a cornerstone of Mr Trump's election campaign, and as president he has issued a hardline and controversial executive order suspending his country's refugee program and temporarily banning travel from seven Muslim-majority nations.
Mr Turnbull did not confirm the details of The Post's report in the wake of the story, saying such conversations were conducted "candidly, frankly, privately."
Mr Trump himself defended his "tough" phone calls on Thursday morning but by the evening described the call as "very civil" on Twitter.
"Thank you to Prime Minister of Australia for telling the truth about our very civil conversation that FAKE NEWS media lied about. Very nice!" he wrote.
A number of Republican senators, including former presidential candidate John McCain, had called Mr Hockey in the wake of the phone call controversy to affirm their support and friendship for Australia.