Rosmah Mansor has revealed her role with regard to the telephone conversation between her husband, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, and US president elect Donald Trump.
Speaking at a function yesterday, the prime minister’s wife said she played various roles at home, including that of an operator and secretary.
“At about 2.30am, my phone rang… I received a call from a big shot, a friend of Datuk (Najib) who played golf (with him) when in New York.
“This person said, ‘Datin Sri (Rosmah), I am so sorry I have to disturb you this morning’.
“I wondered, ‘What was the matter, must be urgent’. If our phone rings after 12 (midnight), we think it must be something urgent, and emergency or whatnot. I said, ‘Yes, Tan Sri, what is the problem?’
“(The friend replied) ‘No, I want to tell you that president elect Donald Trump is expecting Datuk’s call in two hours time.
“I said ‘Eh, this is already 2.30am, you know. Two hours time is 4.30am’. That is the time which is nice to sleep right? How to wake up and start calling someone?
“I asked, ‘What’s the number?’ He said, ‘I don’t have the number’. He said, ‘I will call you in 10 minutes’. I couldn’t sleep, and waited until receiving the president elect’s phone number,” she said in her speech, a video recording of which has been uploaded on YouTube.
Trump won because of his human touch
Much to the audience’s amusement, Rosmah said Najib scolded her when she woke him up to tell him about the phone call, and had wondered if she was dreaming.
“‘What’s so important, so urgent?’ (Najib asked). (Rosmah replied) ‘You know president elect of America Donald Trump is waiting for your call. He expects it in two hour’s time’.
“(Najib asked) ‘Are you sure, are you dreaming?’ (Rosmah replied) ‘No I am telling you the truth.’,” she added.
After requesting her husband to set the alarm, Rosmah said she too set her alarm for the same time just to be cautious.
She added that Najib called the number at the fixed time, and Trump answered himself.
“When I heard (Trump answering), I thought, ‘Good this man, my husband need not go through 3,000 people before he gets to Donald Trump’.
“Usually, when we wish to speak to a big shot, the line is passed around, to the point it gets disconnected, and we have to call again,” she said.
Rosmah said Trump and her husband discussed various things, and the US president elect commended Malaysia’s economic growth rate.
Trump, she added, also asked Najib when the latter planned to visit the US, to which the prime minister replied, “Wait until you settle in and I will come. I would like to discuss a few things with you.”
Rosmah said she was delighted when Trump invited the family as well, saying, “Come over with your family, we can have lunch or dinner.”
“It doesn’t matter if there is (lunch or dinner), the fact that he invited us made me feel good. Because the US president, he doesn’t need to remember us, he doesn’t need to remember Najib. We are just a small country,” she said, adding that if the two families do have a meal together, it would give her an opportunity to meet Trump’s “beautiful daughter”.
Drawing a lesson from the episode, Rosmah said though the conversation was brief, it revealed how Trump connected himself with others, and won them over.
“Now I understand how he won the election. I expected someone else to win, but he won. We were wondering how he won.
“He won because he has the personal touch, that warmth in him to connect with the people,” she added, urging her audience to emulate this trait as the human touch is important.
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