Crikey wraps the controversy.
In case you missed the back and forth yesterday, US President Donald Trump has been a touch annoyed at former Liberal PM Malcolm Turnbull telling Bloomberg the 78-year-old was “chaotic, rude, abusive and erratic” and his treatment of America’s allies would ultimately benefit China.
Responding on his Truth Social platform, Trump declared: “Malcolm Turnbull, the former prime minister of Australia who was always leading that wonderful country from ‘behind’, never understood what was going on in China, nor did he have the capacity to do so. I always thought he was a weak and ineffective leader and, obviously, Australian’s [sic] agreed with me!!!”
Turnbull then went onto ABC’s 7.30 program to double down on his previous remarks and said it was ludicrous that America’s allies had to “suck up” to Trump or join “the conga line of sycophants creeping through the White House”.
“The impact that Trump is having on the world, on the Western alliance, on markets, on our economies — I mean, these are matters that we have to talk about. We cannot continue this bipartisan gas-lighting that is going on at the moment,” he said. “The reality is that Xi Jinping [and] China, will take advantage of Trump’s chaotic behaviour, and his harassing and bullying, seeking to extort allies. This erratic behaviour will be taken advantage of by China. Where Trump is erratic, they’ll be consistent.”
The ABC puts it rather mildly by stating Turnbull’s latest back and forth with Trump (we all know about that 2017 call and the tariff exemption back then) “comes at a highly sensitive time for the Albanese government”.
This will be upsetting a lot of defence establishment types but let it flourish.
While Turnbull was a Do-Nothing PM, he was equally harsh in his language and actions against Chinese influence and bullying in 2017.
He helped root out and stop the mushrooming “silent invasion” of various parliaments and has every right to stick it up our other great friend and ally, the US.
Trump has previously praised Turnbull’s toughness in standing up to him.
This may sound a little contradictory with my campaign to remove Rudd from Washington but they are qualitatively different.
Turnbull has proven pedigree in standing up against international bullies of all stripes. Rudd doesn’t.
Turnbull is a private citizen. Rudd isn’t. He’s our Washington tea lady.
Let’s be equally honest with the US AND China in defense of liberal democracy.
The fight for freedom is still heavily tilted towards the need to be much more honest with China than it is with the US.
