Trump turned a simple conflict-of-interest question into a schoolyard spat — threatening to "tell on" a journo to Australia’s Prime Minister, writes Vince Hooper. IT TAKES A CERTAIN theatre of the absurd to transform a routine White House press gaggle into a diplomatic sideshow. The question was sober and reasonable: a matter of conflicts of interest, wealth accumulation, and transparency in public office. From his first term to his second, Trump has cast journalists as enemies rather than interlocutors. Trump stands almost alone in converting a press query into a matter of international loyalty.