Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, March twelve, twenty twenty five. The plot thickens
Speaker 1: in a string of anti Semitic attacks. Now police say
Speaker 1: a former high ranking bikey boss directed hired criminals to
Speaker 1: firebomb a business. That's after authorities revealed their theory a
Speaker 1: caravan packed with explosives was a criminal conjob, multiple alleged
Speaker 1: offenders and now before the courts. And you can follow
Speaker 1: the twists and turns in this story at the Australian
Speaker 1: dot com. A U Ukraine has accepted a thirty day
Speaker 1: ceasefire proposal orchestrated by the United States, with negotiations to
Speaker 1: commence immediately with Russia. Now, the Americans say the ball
Speaker 1: is in Vladimir Putin's court to accept the truce or not.
Speaker 1: Just hours to go until the United States punishing tariffs
Speaker 1: on Australian steel and aluminium kick in as the White
Speaker 1: House rejects Australia's please for an exemption. In the middle
Speaker 1: of all that, Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull have been
Speaker 1: going at each other's throats. What's that all about and
Speaker 1: what does it do to our economy and our politics.
Speaker 1: If you go scrolling through Donald J. Trump's social media
Speaker 1: feed on his preferred platform, Truth Social, you'll step into
Speaker 1: the president's very public, private world. We've used an AI
Speaker 1: voice generator to bring some of the president's thoughts to life.
Speaker 1: There are opinions.
Speaker 2: Nobody has been tougher on Russia than Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Memes, grabs of Trump out and about.
Speaker 2: And We're going to become so rich. You're not going
Speaker 2: to know where to spend all that money. I'm telling you,
Speaker 2: you just watch.
Speaker 1: And then a vicious attack on a former Australian Prime minister.
Speaker 2: Malcolm Turnbull, the former Prime minige st of Australia, who
Speaker 2: was always leading that wonderful country from behind, never understood
Speaker 2: what was going on in China, nor did he have
Speaker 2: the capacity to do so.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we're here.
Speaker 2: I always thought he was a weak and ineffective leader,
Speaker 2: and obviously Australians agreed with me.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was responding to an interview with Bloomberg where
Speaker 1: Malcolm Turnbull, as he does quite a lot these days,
Speaker 1: gave his frank assessment of the President, in this case
Speaker 1: on his desire for retaliatory tariffs on America's trading partners.
Speaker 3: So you're seeing a much more undiluted Donald Trump second
Speaker 3: time around. People are very pessimistic about the consequence of
Speaker 3: his policies. I and if this triggers a global wave
Speaker 3: of protectionism around the world, that's clearly going to be
Speaker 3: bad for business everywhere. Trump seems to have a view
Speaker 3: that America can prosper at the expense of everybody else.
Speaker 3: But that's not going to work, that's.
Speaker 1: Right, And this is the bit that one suspects got
Speaker 1: the president all riled up.
Speaker 3: I think China will take advantage, massive advantage of Trump.
Speaker 3: But my prediction will be that presidency will aim to
Speaker 3: be the exact opposite of Trump. Where Trump is chaotic,
Speaker 3: he will be consistent. Where Trump is rude and abusive,
Speaker 3: he'll be respectful. Where Trump is erratic, he will be consistent.
Speaker 3: And what that will do is build trust with countries.
Speaker 3: And there will be many countries who will looking at
Speaker 3: China on the one hand and Trump on the other
Speaker 3: will find China a more attractive partner.
Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers is The Australian's chief political correspondent. Jeff, the
Speaker 1: thing that seems to have got Donald Trump annoyed is
Speaker 1: an interview with Bloomberg where Malcolm Turnbull talked about Trump's
Speaker 1: tariff's policy, but then also said that President Shijinping of
Speaker 1: China would really take massive advantage of Trump, would out
Speaker 1: negotiate him. What is your sense of whether it was
Speaker 1: a good idea for Malcolm Turnbull to get involved in
Speaker 1: this conversation with Trump.
Speaker 4: I don't think that Malcolm Turnbull cares much for whether
Speaker 4: things are good ideas or not. He loves the limelight,
Speaker 4: and we've got prime ministers that step away from the
Speaker 4: public sphere and in recent times, whether it's Malcolm Turnbull,
Speaker 4: Kevin rad or Paul Keating, that you're seeing prime ministers
Speaker 4: very much injecting themselves into public debate when it suits them.
Speaker 4: Malcolm Turnble would have been fully aware that Thursday, Australian
Speaker 4: time is the start of these proposed tariffs from the
Speaker 4: Trump administration which will capture Australian steel and aluminium. So
Speaker 4: days out from that he goes on Bloomberg, which is
Speaker 4: a very heavily watched, very reputable platform, and I think
Speaker 4: he would have been over the moon that Donald Trump
Speaker 4: has given him a shout out. If you're the abeneasy government,
Speaker 4: not so great for them. But in what he said,
Speaker 4: a lot of people around the world, outside of America
Speaker 4: and outside of the marga hardcore people wouldn't disagree with
Speaker 4: some of his observations, but he was being provocative. But
Speaker 4: no doubt he will now use that for a long
Speaker 4: period of time throughout this term as a guy that
Speaker 4: can get under the skin of the US President.
Speaker 1: Back in the wild early days of the first Trump presidency,
Speaker 1: Malcolm Turnbull, as Prime Minister, got the President on the
Speaker 1: phone and asked him to honor a deal made by
Speaker 1: his predecessor to consider taking up to two thousand refugees
Speaker 1: who'd come to Australia by boat. The transcript of that
Speaker 1: January twenty seventeen corps was later obtained by The Washington
Speaker 1: Post and published in full, and it reveals a quite
Speaker 1: remarkable interplay between the two men. It starts with Trump
Speaker 1: fuming about the deal. We've used voice actors and that
Speaker 1: AI voice generator to bring some snippets of the conversation
Speaker 1: to life.
Speaker 2: It sends such a bad signal. You have no idea.
Speaker 2: It is such a bad thing.
Speaker 5: Can you hear me out, mister president?
Speaker 6: Yeah, go ahead, Yes, the agreement does not require you
Speaker 6: to take two thousand people. It does not require you
Speaker 6: to take any It requires in return for us to
Speaker 6: do a number of things for the United States.
Speaker 5: This is a big deal. I think we should respect deals.
Speaker 2: Who made the deal Obama, Yes, but let.
Speaker 6: Me describe what it is. I think it is quite consistent.
Speaker 6: I think you can comply with it. It is absolutely
Speaker 6: consistent with your executive order. So please just.
Speaker 5: Hear me out.
Speaker 2: Trump wants to know why haven't you let them out?
Speaker 2: Why have you not let them into your society?
Speaker 6: Okay, I will explain why. It is not because they
Speaker 6: are bad people. It is because in order to stop
Speaker 6: people smugglers, we had to deprive them of the product.
Speaker 6: So we said, if you try to come to Australia
Speaker 6: by boat, even if we I think you are the
Speaker 6: best person in the world, even if you are a
Speaker 6: Nobel Prize winning genius, we will not let you in
Speaker 6: because the problem with the people.
Speaker 2: That is a good idea. We should do that too.
Speaker 2: You are worse than I am.
Speaker 1: By the end of the call, Trump is agreeing, still reluctantly,
Speaker 1: to stick with Obama's deal.
Speaker 2: I am going to get killed on this thing.
Speaker 5: You will not, Malcolm.
Speaker 2: I have had it. I have been making these calls
Speaker 2: all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day.
Speaker 2: Putin was a pleasant call. This is ridiculous.
Speaker 5: Thank you for your commitment. It is very important to us.
Speaker 2: It is important to you, and it is embarrassing to me.
Speaker 2: It is an embarrassment to me. But at least I
Speaker 2: got you off the hook. So you put me back
Speaker 2: on the hook.
Speaker 5: You can count on me. I will be there again
Speaker 5: and again, I hope.
Speaker 2: So Okay, thank you, Malcolm.
Speaker 4: I think this time around it's a different circumstance. Yes,
Speaker 4: there was that famous conversation between Donald Trump and Malcolm
Speaker 4: Turnbull just after Trump had come to the White House
Speaker 4: and inherited the refugee deal swap that Barak Obama had
Speaker 4: agreed to. But let's not be under the illusion that
Speaker 4: Malcolm Turbul subsequent to that did not do what most
Speaker 4: prime ministers do, and that is ingratiate themselves to Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: That's typically the dynamic that occurs. And once he got
Speaker 4: that exemption, then they talked up just how close they
Speaker 4: were and how alike they were. And for Malcolm Turble
Speaker 4: to now suggest that somehow he always took on the
Speaker 4: big bully. You know, when you're in office and you're
Speaker 4: in power, it's a very different scenario. The fact is
Speaker 4: that Malcolm Turbull was a world leader in taking on China.
Speaker 4: He banned Huawei, he introduced very tough foreign interference laws,
Speaker 4: and he scrapped an extradition treaty with China, and that
Speaker 4: really was the start of those deteriorating relations with Beijing.
Speaker 4: And subsequent to that, all our five ICE partners, including
Speaker 4: the US, then realized that imminent threat that China pose
Speaker 4: on that front. You have to give Malcolm Turnble credit. Yes,
Speaker 4: Peter Dutton and others were in key roles and some
Speaker 4: security heads were really pushing that. But for the record,
Speaker 4: it was under the Turnbull government. And then obviously the
Speaker 4: remark that Donald Trump's saying that Australians booted Malcolm Turnbull
Speaker 4: out of office.
Speaker 1: So now are we back where we started with this
Speaker 1: very hostile exchange.
Speaker 4: Look in a way, it's often another realm. There was
Speaker 4: a lot of pessimism in the Alberzi government ranks. So
Speaker 4: we saw Penny Wong, Richard marleson, most recently Jim Chalmers
Speaker 4: head to Washington to make the case. Kevin Rudters also
Speaker 4: hosted a couple of times the US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik,
Speaker 4: who was an influential player in all this, and on
Speaker 4: all occasions they've come away empty handed and they've basically
Speaker 4: been told this is the US president's decision. While steel
Speaker 4: and our uminium they're not really massive in terms of
Speaker 4: our exports to the US, and Blue Scope, who operate
Speaker 4: out of Kembler have got a lot of big investments
Speaker 4: over there in the States. The government really want to
Speaker 4: make clear that they are taking it seriously and they're
Speaker 4: still hopeful. But there's other concerns in the government post
Speaker 4: election that whether it's copper, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, that this tariff
Speaker 4: war or this tariff imposition could broaden to other areas
Speaker 4: that are much more important to our economy. So if
Speaker 4: you mishandle it, or you go too far and through
Speaker 4: a campaign, Donald Trump puts a social media post out
Speaker 4: and says, I'm not so sure about UCUS. It's got
Speaker 4: the potential if you mishandle it to escalate very quickly.
Speaker 4: And we've seen this with other world leaders that you've
Speaker 4: got to play the game with Trump.
Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers is the Australian's chief political correspondent. You can
Speaker 1: follow developments live at the Australian dot com dot au