Donald Trump, Anthony Albanese and Waterloo: How US discourse is racing to the bottom of vulgarity
In a stunning display of political disarmament, the NATO member nations (except for Spain) capitulated to Trump's demands for a massive increase in their defence spending as a percentage of each country's GDP. NATO chief Mark Rutte wrote to Trump, 'you will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done'. Trump got that one up immediately on Truth Social. Trump had mellowed further by the time he went home. 'These people really love their countries. It's not a rip-off, and we're here to help them.'
If anything, Trump is an irresistible force. But he has not yet met an immovable object – not in Congress, not in the courts, not in the media, not in the bureaucracy and not in NATO or in Denmark's Greenland, or at the Panama Canal. Trump has reopened his massive trade war with Canada. Trump has not given up on those imperial acquisitions he hungers for.
Gavin Newsom called Trump's 'one big, beautiful bill' a 'one big bullshit bill'. Credit: AP
In the wake of all this, how will Trump treat Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Australia when they meet in person? Trump will be fully briefed on Albanese's posture against NATO's percentage-of-GDP number for defence, on Australia's votes against Israel in the United Nations, on Australia's support for the International Court of Justice, on the PM's equivocation on whether the Iran strikes violated international law. Trump knows Musk, Meta, Google and Amazon are infuriated by Australia's social media controls and local news content payment laws, and want them scrapped.
It would never occur to Trump, if he wants more success in his trade wars, to say to those countries who are not playing ball, 'you want a better deal with me? Well, take a look at Australia. They have a trade deficit with us. I reward them with minimal tariffs. You want to escape the weapons I use on trade? Be more like Australia.' Trump is incapable of saying that. He will prefer instead to put tariffs on Australia's pharmaceuticals.
At week's end, the Supreme Court further ratified Trump's extraordinary executive powers. The court has now barred federal judges from imposing nationwide injunctions on suspect executive orders. The court is likely to reinterpret the precise words in the constitution that bestow citizenship on anyone born in the United States. States may well be able to say whether a child born in their borders is a US citizen – or stateless.
Trump's assaults on the media are more brutal than ever. He hated CNN's Iran coverage. 'Natasha Bertrand should be FIRED from CNN! I watched her for three days doing Fake News. She should immediately be reprimanded, and then thrown out 'like a dog'.'
Trump is demanding that Congress defund public media – PBS and NPR, 'the radical left monsters that so badly hurt our country'. The Senate will vote on that in July.
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Trump is injecting a sepsis-like infection of political expression. Trump shocked the world with his F-bomb. It capped a decade of his resort to obscenities, denigrations and defamatory rants. The United States now lives in a race to the bottom of an echo chamber of vulgarity. California governor Gavin Newsom last week attacked Trump's 'one big, beautiful bill' pending in Congress: 'The Republican One Big Bullshit Bill proves that we've known all along. They don't care about you.' So the BS word is now lingua franca with the F-bomb.
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West Australian
32 minutes ago
- West Australian
Summit season stands as Prime Minister Albanese's best chance to meet Trump
The Prime Minister is unlikely to get the chance to meet Donald Trump for at least another two months — and then it'll probably be on the sidelines of a summit rather than at the White House. Anthony Albanese could make as many as eight overseas visits before the end of the year, with five of them likely putting him in the same location as the US President. However, as he discovered at the G7 summit in Kananaskis in Canada in June, Mr Trump's changeable priorities mean there's no guarantee of securing anything. Mr Albanese said his office and the White House were working through the timing of a meeting. Previously, the attitude from government officials had been they wanted to line something up as quickly as possible to settle growing issues within the alliance, particularly around defence spending and the AUKUS pact. But on Tuesday, during a variety of interviews, Mr Albanese appeared more relaxed about the timing. 'When we have a meeting, we'll have a meeting. And when it's scheduled, that will occur,' he told Sky News. On Seven's Sunrise, he said that 'summit season' towards the end of the year offered multiple opportunities to meet. 'We have the G20, we have APEC, we have a range of meetings where the US President would be expected to attend, as well as leaders in the region, as well as of course the Quad meeting that will take place this year in India,' Mr Albanese said. 'Importantly here, I think that Australian viewers and lookers, watchers and readers, of some of the media would think that Australia is this little country that doesn't contribute anything to this relationship. We do. We're an important ally for the United States.' However, he conceded the timing of the presidential meeting remained open-ended, and said Australian and US ministers and officials were continuing talks. A date for the Quad leaders gathering — which will involve Mr Trump, Mr Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba — is tipped to be set as part of their foreign ministers' meeting overnight. Host nation India has reportedly been looking at dates in September. Mr Albanese is also expected to head to the United Nations General Assembly in late September, which would put him within a short flight of the White House. Scott Morrison timed his 2019 visit to Donald Trump with the UN gathering, enabling him to meet several other key world leaders on the same trip and address the General Assembly, which Mr Albanese is yet to do. The US and Australian leaders are also likely to both attend the APEC meeting in Korea at the end of October and the G20 in South Africa in November. Mr Trump may head to the ASEAN and East Asia Summit meetings in Malaysia earlier in October, just ahead of APEC, although it's not always a given that the US President attends in person. Also pencilled into the prime ministerial diary — alongside eight parliamentary sitting weeks — is a trip to China for the annual leadership dialogue later this month, the Pacific Island Forum in the Solomon Islands in September, and possibly the UN climate conference in Brazil in November. Australia wants to host next year's UN climate conference, but is in a stand-off with Turkey as each waits for the other to pull out of the running. There is value in the Prime Minister being able to speak with other leaders at these major summits and represent Australian interests on the global stage, United States Studies Centre international relations expert Brendon O'Connor said, even if it was just a shorter 'meet and greet'. When it came to the Trump administration, Professor O'Connor said there was just as much benefit from meeting his top advisers and cabinet members — as Mr Albanese did in Canada — and people shouldn't 'obsess about the idea of meeting' the President himself. 'There's this obviously very difficult balance with Trump at the moment, of not wanting to get Australia into unnecessary fights with Trump but, on the other hand, being out of sight, out of mind isn't entirely a bad thing with Trump,' he said. 'I think some of the media coverage of when will Albanese meet Trump, I don't think it's that useful … I don't think there's any great benefit of meeting Trump.' He pointed to the troubled Oval Office meetings with some leaders, notably Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa, saying something on the sidelines of a summit would be a more attractive proposition for Australia. 'I wouldn't be advising the Australian Prime Minister to have a long sit down chat with the US media present and Trump just free-forming about which Australian leaders he likes and doesn't like, and why Australia is a good country or not a good country, and expecting whoever's there to basically agree with him,' Professor O'Connor said. Shadow defence minister Angus Taylor accused Mr Albanese of being 'more interested and more able to get a meeting with the President of China than the President of the United States'. 'We've got to get serious about this. Whether it's on the economic side, the trade side, on the national security and defence side, we've got to get serious about it,' he said. Since his inauguration in January, Mr Trump has hosted 14 world leaders at the White House and met a further six on overseas trips. Out of the OECD and G20 countries, there are 33 leaders he is yet to meet in-person this term.
Sky News AU
3 hours ago
- Sky News AU
US President Donald Trump hits back at Elon Musk, threatens with him with DOGE after proposed ‘America Party' announcement
Donald Trump has lashed out at billionaire Elon Musk after the Tesla and Space X chief executive floated creating a political party to protest the United States President's so called 'big beautiful bill'. The controversial spending bill, which is currently making its way through US Congress, has sparked fierce criticism from Musk, who previously described it as a "disgusting abomination". Musk has since taken to social media to announce his plan to form the 'America Party' if the bill, which he has labelled 'insane', does pass. 'Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE,' Musk posted on X at about 8am on Tuesday AEST. The world's richest man also reposted a chart which appeared to show historic levels of US national debt. 'They just pretend to be two parties,' Musk posted, appearing to reference the Republican and Democratic parties. 'It's just one uniparty in reality.' President Trump has now hit back on his own social media platform, Truth Social, taking aim at Musk over the electric vehicle sales mandate introduced under former president Joe Biden. 'Elon Musk knew, long before he so strongly Endorsed me for President, that I was strongly against the EV mandate. It is ridiculous, and was always a major part of my campaign. Electric cars are fine, but not everyone should be forced to own one,' Trump posted on the platform at 2.44pm on Tuesday, AEST. The US commander-in-chief then claimed Musk possibly received more subsidies than 'any human being in history, by far' and that the Tesla boss would likely be forced to 'head back home to South Africa' without them. He also appeared to threaten Musk with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) - a federal cost-cutting body created and headed by Musk before the billionaire departed from the role in May. 'No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!' President Trump's post said. The new comments come amid a continued public fallout between the President and Musk that broke out last month over the tax and spending bill, which is expected to add US$3.3 trillion to the country's national debt. The pair since have since traded jabs over social media, including Musk claiming President Trump was 'in the Epstein files' and the US leader threatening to end Musk's "Governmental Subsidies and Contracts".
Sky News AU
3 hours ago
- Sky News AU
Albanese grilled for embarrassing back-to-back interview fails
Sky News Political Editor Andrew Clennell criticises Anthony Albanese for fumbling back-to-back interviews following multiple Trump-related questions. 'It's just gritted teeth you see there,' Mr Clennell told Sky News host Steve Price. 'I bet you he's sorry he put his name up for those interviews.'
