Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim felt comfortable enough in the presence of Donald Trump on Sunday morning to make a joke at the expense of the notoriously thin-skinned US president.
“We share a lot of things in common — I was in prison, but you almost got there,” Anwar told Trump, referring to his own nine years in jail and the US president’s conviction on 34 counts last year.
Anwar’s dig reflected a bonhomie between the leaders, resulting from Malaysia rolling out the red carpet for Trump on his first trip to Asia in his second term — a period marked by rising geopolitical tension between the US and many of its biggest trade partners in the region.