September 24, 2025 • 43 mins
President Donald Trump's combative 57-minute address at the United Nation on Tuesday took direct aim at global leaders - criticising their approach to migration, climate policy, and failure to end wars. He's also since taken to Truth Social to say Ukraine could get back all the land they have lost since Russia's 2022 invasion.
But beyond the applause and outrage, what was he really saying? And what does that mean for the rest of the world?
In today's episode of TrumpWorld, Anushka and Matt unpack that speech with Malcolm Turnbull - who served as the Prime Minister of Australia during Donald Trump's first term.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You know, one of the scarcest commodities in politics is
authenticity, and Trump is very authentic.
Is it better to be authenticallybad than to be inauthentically
good? Well, that's a very good point.
Donald Trump has gone on true social to say now Ukraine should
not just win this war, but win back the territory that Russia
has already started to take. Trump said in his own speech
(00:21):
peace is not achieved by strongly worded letters, rather
by action. Well, he's action man.
Now it's the opportunity for himto do it.
Hello and welcome to Trump World, this time from New York
City. I'm Matt Frey.
And I'm Anishka Astana. We're both here in the city that
(00:43):
never sleeps, both of us not sleeping quite enough, I think
it's fair to say. And New York City is, in a way,
closed down for world leader convoys to shoot through, which
is why I just had to run throughManhattan to get here to be with
you, Matt. I think this is something like
my 12th UN General Assembly. It always comes at this time of
year in September, when it's still nice and warm and all you
(01:05):
really want to do is sit outsideon the pavement, have a, you
know, a beer and a cup of coffee.
But then you see everything is about barricades and police
roadblocks. And there are these delegations
from all over the world with their entourage and their
clipboards and their Secret Service agents walking through
the city. But because of Trump mainly,
even whenever he shows up, it's entertaining or alarming.
(01:29):
And today was definitely alarming.
I think he gave the most brazen speech I've ever heard him give,
especially to this crowd, insulting his hosts, the United
Nations. And remember, he of course,
denied visas to the Palestinian delegation, all 32 of them.
They, they couldn't even show up, even though the recognition
of Palestine was a massive issuein this General Assembly.
(01:54):
And he then had some bilateral meetings and one of them was
with President Zelensky. And he came out of that meeting
and, and said something he hasn't said at all since he took
over, which is actually that Ukraine is in a position to take
over all the territory it's lostto Russia, changing his tune
completely. And then astonishingly, he, he
(02:15):
put this all out on social media, he said at the end, and
good luck to you both. You know, I think to him, all of
it, it's not quite a joke, but it is sort of a game.
Well, it it definitely feels like it's a game show wherever
he goes, right back to when he dressed down Zelensky in
February in the White House. And his final kind of thought is
this will make great television.He's clearly always, always
(02:38):
thinking about this. And look, that speech was
extraordinary. We're going to go through it
with our guest later on, the former Australian Prime Minister
Malcolm Turnbull, who has been up there himself and who has had
many clashes with Donald Trump as well.
But yeah, before we do, it is kind of extraordinary to think
(02:58):
that he would put that out on Truth Social.
And also in it, he he talks as if he's not part of NATO.
He has this line where he basically says, yeah, we'll just
keep giving weapons to NATO and they could do whatever they want
with them. And, and in terms of like the
position we're at, you know, we have a situation where he
invites Vladimir Putin to Alaska.
He rolls out the red carpet literally for the Russian
(03:22):
President. He gets a bit annoyed when the
Russian President suggests that he wants to take the whole of
the Donbass region in order to try and do a deal.
But but the reality at the time,Matt, and I'm sure you've talked
to a lot of people about this. I've spoken to, I asked Keir
Starmer about this when he was here in Washington, DC.
(03:42):
If you ever ask them about whether or not Ukraine is going
to have to give up the land thatRussia has already seized, no
leader would say that. They'd have an answer on that.
They'd say it would be up to Ukraine.
But privately, behind the scenes, the assumption is that
that land is never going to be won back militarily by Ukraine.
(04:03):
So the idea that suddenly DonaldTrump would come in with this
statement, which would require ahuge offensive from Ukraine,
presumably would require a massive, you know, extra arming
by Europe and America, just seems mind blowing, but also
makes you question how seriouslyto take whatever the president
(04:24):
is saying. One thing that always intrigues
me about Trump is that whenever he does one of his many
pronouncements or signs, a declaration from the so-called
Resolute Desk that was put into the Oval Office by Abraham
Lincoln, there's not a single shred of paper on that desk.
I don't think he ever reads a single briefing note.
He might be told stuff, you know, maybe his briefing is
(04:44):
watching Fox News, but there's, I don't get the impression that
he does any homework whatsoever.There's not a shred of evidence
of that, that he knows the facts, that he's got the the
context, that he knows a little bit about the history.
And I think that's important, especially in the case of
Ukraine, because this isn't about land.
It's about, you know, Ukraine surviving as an independent
(05:08):
sovereign nation state. And I still don't think he
really understands that. And that must be incredibly
frustrating with someone like Zelensky, you know, if he pins
him up against the wall at the United Nations in some dreary
briefing room and, and tells himthe way it is and what he would
like. And Trump agrees.
But again, does he actually remember any of that stuff?
Does he act on it? The one thing that comes up and
(05:29):
you know, people I, I spoke to this week have pointed and you
know who, who worked with the administration have pointed this
out in a, in a very serious way.It's all about Donald Trump.
He is the change maker. He is the rainmaker, he's the
peacemaker. So when Donald Trump thinks that
things aren't going his way, that's when he gets upset.
So when he talks about Vladimir Putin, he repeatedly says, I
(05:51):
will change my policy here that doesn't even use the word
policy, but I will change what I've been doing or saying
because he has let me down. This is not about values.
This is not about the future of the Ukrainian people.
This is about him and his ego getting bruised.
And therefore he will act in a certain way.
It's all always about him. And that's what we saw at the
(06:14):
United Nations today. Here is this one man appearing
in front of this crowd. And, you know, they're not all
model Democrats, right? And some of them are dictators
and some of them are, you know, democratically elected.
But in that rambling, rasping litany of grievances and
pettiness and that whole thing about they never gave me the
(06:34):
contract to renew the plumbing at the UN headquarters back in
the 1980s. And you brought that up.
He spent more time talking aboutthe Teresa floor and the, the,
the, the, the parquet floor and all that nonsense in the UN
building, and it's not particularly nice.
He's got a point there, but still, he talked more about that
(06:55):
than about nuclear weapons. I mean, it's astonishing.
Yeah, but it is worth just goingthrough the different bits of
the speech that were quite, you know, arguably could be quite
consequential if actions actually match words and there
isn't necessarily evidence on each part that they will.
You know, on the UN, he was incredibly critical of the UN in
there. He repeated his claim that he
(07:15):
has ended 7 wars in. Seven months.
It's almost biblical. I think if you go and speak to
each of the countries individually, they, they, they
don't disagree. There's much more nuance on a
lot of that. But but then he comes out, he
speaks to, you know, the UN General secretary Anthony
Guterres. He says, oh, America is 100%
(07:35):
behind the UN. Obviously on Russia, he was
critical of European countries for buying Russian oil,
including some of his own allies.
But then he comes out and he takes a much tougher stance on
Russia, on climate. I mean, that is the strongest
attack on climate change and those who want to tackle the
climate crisis that I've ever heard.
(07:57):
He essentially called it a con and a hoax.
That there is a slight shift here, I think this week in the
UN that we've seen in terms of the way everyone's dealing with
Donald Trump. We have seen leader after leader
suck up to Donald Trump because they know that, you know,
America's still really importanton those of these issues and
they think that's the best way to his heart.
But on the issue of Palestine, we have seen something quite
(08:17):
different. And I think, you know, the fact
that we have seen so many countries, including the UK and
it is symbolic, Obviously it is symbolic rather than leading to
practical action at this time. But to basically stand against
the US and say they're going to recognize Palestinian statehood
did feel like quite a moment in terms of of where the UN was
(08:37):
going. And, and it did feel to me like
the US was it taking an increasingly isolated position
when it came to that. Which which is really, I think
quite alarming because the US onthis particular issue, together
with Israel has decided, you know, to go, you know, down the
yellow brick road to, to eternalwar.
(08:58):
I think. I mean, they're just Trump isn't
really that interested in in in ending the war in Gaza.
He says that he is. He's interested in bringing the
hostages home and then he might do something more dramatic about
ending the war. But but what we've seen, the
evidence suggests that he is wholeheartedly behind Benjamin
Netanyahu's war on Gaza and he is wholeheartedly behind
(09:20):
whatever the Israelis are doing in the West Bank.
He has not done nothing to stop the Israelis crossing any number
of red lines in both those cases.
And should Netanyahu say he's going to annex the annex the
West Bank? I don't think he'll stand in his
way. Yeah, all the signs are that
America won't do anything about that.
I mean, this speech in which basically Trump, you know,
(09:42):
attacked every kind of group that you could imagine, even if
afterwards he was more conciliatory, comes after a kind
of extraordinary couple of weeksin the US with the killing of
Charlie Kirk, the political conservative activist who was
very, very close to Donald Trump.
And one of the things that I just thought was so striking was
at that memorial, Charlie Kirk'swidow basically said, I don't
(10:04):
hate the person who did this. I've forgiven him.
She's a good Christian. Yeah, she's, you know, you
respond with love and Trump comes up and basically says,
yeah, I hate my opponents. And, and, and this is so
different. Trump 2.0 to the first time
round because he's, he knows what he wants to do and he is
taking action. He's clearly quite driven by
(10:24):
Stephen Miller, who's an absolutely key advisor, his
deputy chief of staff. And you know, in the days since
then and, and practically, it's very difficult to do this.
I can just explain why. But he says he's going to label
Antifa as a terrorist organization.
Now, just to be absolutely clear, Antifa does doesn't have
a leadership. It's a movement.
(10:44):
It's a left wing movement. And how you practically go about
doing what he's saying would be very difficult to see.
But he is taking action. And some of it feels like pretty
authoritarian action to crack down on free speech from the
left, for example, you know, in the wake of Charlie Kirk's
(11:06):
killing. And it feels like a very, very
momentous moment for the US It is time to bring in our guests
to explore all of that. Malcolm Turnbull, former Prime
Minister of Australia, thank youfor joining us.
Yeah. Great to be with you.
You've been up at that stage, and you've also presumably
watched US presidents at that stage.
(11:28):
Did that speech surprise you? Well, nothing really surprises
you with Donald Trump. He is.
He's one-of-a-kind, but it was a, it was not only very long, it
was very eccentric. You know, all of the discussion
about the broken escalator and the teleprompter were a bit odd.
And, you know, the savage attackon global warming, on the
(11:52):
science about global warming, the savage attack on other
countries, about migration. I mean, look, it's not
everything he says is wrong. I mean, interestingly, when I
spoke to the UNI Think in 2016, I made some points about
controlling unauthorized migration, which, you know, I
(12:14):
guess overlapped a bit with whatTrump said.
Obviously, I was much more measured.
But I did make the point that ifyou want to maintain support for
a multicultural society and in your own country, you need to be
able to control your borders. And so, you know, not everything
Trump says is wrong. I was stood right by him when he
(12:37):
went on to that escalator and helooked absolutely furious
because basically he and Melaniagot onto it and then it
immediately got stuck and he hadto walk up and, and as he walked
up, people were saying, oh, he'sfuming about about all of that.
Yes, generally it's better not to, you know, make that as
obvious as he did, but there yougo.
(12:59):
That's him. I mean, he look, you know, one
of the scarcest commodities in politics is authenticity.
And Trump is very authentic. You know, he is.
He gives the impression that he's saying what he thinks.
That doesn't necessarily mean you'll think the same thing from
one hour or one day to the next,but he comes across as
(13:19):
authentic. And I think that's one of his,
one of his political strengths. Even though he's often
authentically bad, is it better to be authentically bad than to
be inauthentically good? Well, that's a very good point.
I think politically it is you'rebetter off being authentic.
But if you are authentically wrong and authentically bad or
(13:39):
crazy, ultimately people won't vote for you.
But that inauthenticity and these politicians that sound
like they've been to politiciansschool and they're trying to be
somebody else. Ultimately people see through
that. And you know, particularly
nowadays, politicians do so muchmedia.
(14:02):
Trump does more media than he's done, more media this year than
the last three US presidents, you know, apart from himself
probably did in their whole terms.
But you know, in a country like Australia and, or indeed in the
UK where you're have to answer the Question Time in Parliament,
you're constantly, you know, doing interviews and engaging
(14:23):
with people. If you do sound like a political
stiff, then people will see through it.
I just wonder because, I mean, Italked to one of his people
today and, and they said, well, you know, it may have sounded
like a very insular speech, a very nationalistic, nativistic
speech, but he was addressing his crowd at home.
When you're on that stage, when you are on that stage, I mean,
(14:45):
surely you're talking to the audience in front of you, not
the audience, you know, in Kentucky or Milwaukee, or in
your case it would have been, I don't know, NSW or the Hunter
Valley, you know? All politics is local and so
every politician has got an eye on their domestic electorate and
Trump, Trump, you know, very much so.
(15:07):
So yes, you have but but obviously at the UN you're
seeking to engage a global audience.
And look, I think Trump was seeking to engage.
He was telling them that particularly the Europeans that
they're absolutely wrong on on migration.
So he, you know, he was savage in his attack there.
(15:27):
I mean, he, he's very much and you know, he's, he and Vance
both are quite shamelessly intervening in politics in
Europe. I mean, there's no, it's
perfectly clear that, you know, they, they support the nativist
political movements in Europe, whether it's Farage in the UK or
Marine Le Pen in France or the Afd in Germany or Orban, of
(15:50):
course, who's the gut Prime Minister in Hungary?
Without mentioning Orban by name.
Yeah, yeah. And, and the two countries that
do Orban, Hungary and Slovakia, which both run by, you know,
populist right wing governments that would, you know, be seen as
as quite Trumpian. But just on this point that he
(16:11):
really did go for Europe, he went for the UK, he went for
London with stuff that wasn't true.
I mean, it's suggesting to an audience, potentially of
millions, that Sharia law is coming in, in London, for
example. Suggesting to an audience of
billions. Billions.
But, you know, we have seen at the White House European leader
after European leader come in. And I mean, I think the word
(16:35):
sycophantic fits. Yeah.
They have gone out of their way to suck up to Trump.
And privately their teams tell you it's because this is how he
responds positively to things. And and maybe afterwards they
get their support on Russia, which we'll come back to.
But just does this show that sucking up to Trump doesn't
work? It absolutely doesn't work.
(16:56):
And look, I, unlike most of the people who write about this,
I've actually dealt with Trump and I had a very good
relationship with him. But I had a good relationship
with him for one reason and one reason only, that I won his
respect by standing up to him and having a blazing row with
him. At the beginning.
I wasn't, you know, perhaps the circumstances that caused that
(17:19):
to happen, but it worked out to be very good because he is, you
know, Trump. Trump is a strong man.
He's a bully and you know when he meets encounters somebody who
he can't bend to his will, he then negotiates and
accommodates. When you say you had a row with
him, and I'm trying to picture it in my mind, were you actually
(17:40):
shouting at each other? I mean, to what level did you
raise your voice? Well, it was a telephone call
and the the context was, was in January 2017.
He hadn't been president for very long.
I had done a deal with a Barack Obama to resettle asylum seekers
(18:01):
in the United States that we were not, we're not going to
resettle in Australia. And in return we were helping
the Americans out with some asylum seeker issues in return.
So it was, it was a deal. It was want to say it was a
deal, it was a contract, it was an agreement signed, you know,
signed, sealed and delivered as it were.
(18:21):
And Trump wanted to, was not, was not going to honour that.
And that's so the, so we had a big row about it.
And I stood my ground and I said, you know, you've, we have
an agreement with the United States of America and we expect
you to honour it. And he got very angry.
(18:42):
I mean, a lot of it. This is not a, I'm not revealing
any secrets. You know that most of the
transcript of the call, not all of it, thankfully.
Which bit didn't they publish onthe transcript?
Although some classic so well I I shouldn't go into it because
there were some things that werewere were quite classified.
Some FF bombers were dropped, Some cuss words.
(19:03):
Whoever leaked and out of the White House thankfully had had.
There was some redactions, I'm pleased to say.
I was just going to say, you sayyou've had a good relationship
with him, but I think you've called him chaotic, rude,
abusive and erratic and he's called you weak and ineffective.
I mean, it doesn't doesn't soundlike quite a great relationship.
(19:23):
Well, that's recently, but when I was in office after that we
had a good transactional relationship and you know, he, I
persuaded him not to impose tariffs on Australian,
Australian steel and aluminium for example.
Yeah, no, it was good. It was a very practical
(19:44):
relationship. And interestingly so that that
post he had on Truth Social having a go at me was because
he'd seen me on Bloomberg earlier this year doing an
interview in which I'd been asked how China would react to
the trade war. And I said they will take
advantage of it. They'll go on the charm
(20:05):
offensive. They'll use it to, you know,
they'll seek to be the reverse of Trump.
They'll be consistent where he'serratic, they'll be respectful
where he's abusive and angry. And of course, he that upset
him. But in fact, it's it's exactly
what's happened so. You know, having said that, as
they say, the greater the truth the greater the libel, so people
(20:27):
were always upset when you tell them the truth it.
Really struck me listening to the speech, which was more
abrasive than any speech he'd ever given at the UN and and
the, you know, the bar for that is pretty high, to be honest.
It struck me that you know what was once an aberration and
ignited laughter in the room andsmirks.
You know, he is, he is speaking to the gallery even on European
(20:50):
politics. And we may have President Marine
Le Pen in France based on an immigration ticket or Jordan
Badela after the next presidential election.
The Afd is doing really well in Germany, much better than it did
when Angela Merkel was in power.Nigel Farage in Britain, we've
talked about. I mean, he is, you know, the
stuff that he says today that sounds really offensive and
abrasive become often becomes tomorrow's reality.
(21:14):
And do you think the world is sort of caught up with Trump's
weird view of nativist view of politics?
Well, I, it's not entirely weird.
I mean, I, I, I, I know this sounds, I don't want to you to
think I've suddenly become a Trumpian.
But the bottom line, and I made this, we've, we've had been of
this view in Australia for a long time, as you know, but but
(21:36):
the bottom line is, and I expressed this in my own address
to the UN General Assembly, you know, when I'm back when I was
PM, is that you have to control your own borders.
Now, if you know, and if you, ifyou allow uncontrolled or what
the public regard as uncontrolled migration, you
(21:58):
know, which is essentially people smugglers, asylum seekers
just flooding across your borders, you fire up the
populist, right. I mean, it plays into the hands
of a Trump when Trump would not have got elected if Biden had
controlled the southern border. For sure it plays into the hands
of Farage and Albarn and the Afdand so forth.
(22:20):
I mean, Angela Merkel is a greatwoman, great leader, but she
made a colossal mistake in allowing 1,000,000 refugees from
the Syrian conflict zone to walkinto Germany.
A colossal I I understand the empathy and the compassion, but
it's a massive mistake. I I've heard you say on exactly
that, that perhaps that for example, led to Brexit.
(22:42):
Certainly contributed to Brexit,there's no doubt about that.
And that that argument, you know, I can totally see that
argument, the logic of that argument.
But we also have a situation where Donald Trump was basically
saying how how outrageous it wasthat the UN itself would help
these illegal aliens as they're coming across the border.
You talk about compassion. There seems to be like the idea
(23:03):
that people are actually seekingasylum, fleeing persecution,
fleeing conflict. It it, it's almost like we can't
even have a conversation about that anymore.
No, no, we've got, you've got tohave a look the, the, the
approach we've taken in Australia.
And I mean, I just, you know, I,I understand Australia is
unique. You know, we're an island.
We've got a lot of ocean betweenUS and everywhere else.
(23:24):
So I'm not suggesting that everything we do can be easily
done elsewhere, but we have a generous humanitarian program.
But we take the view that if youthat that anyone who comes here
as a refugee comes here because they have been, you know,
identified and selected and approved and given a visa.
(23:45):
OK. And I mean, I made this point to
Trump years ago in that notorious call.
I said to him, our position is that if there is a people
smuggler with a boat full of Nobel Prize winners, they still
won't get in. And because we've just learnt
over the years that the only wayyou stop people smugglers is to
deprive them of their product. You know, there's a lot of stuff
(24:07):
that Trump says that is, you know, just fiction really.
But at the heart of it, this point about that controlling
your own borders is really critical.
But they're also different groups of people aren't there.
I mean, in Britain as a case in point, 40,000 people on average
roughly in the last few years come over on small boats and
(24:27):
750,000 people are are brought in in a controlled way through
the official channels. And actually by, you know, by
kind of muddying the waters and blurring the lines between one
small group. That's got a very powerful
visual impact because you have this idea of a kind of reverse
Dunkirk of all these boats turning up.
That's what gets people upset. And then you've got the other
(24:48):
thing, which is actually quite official and above board, but
still too many people are comingin.
Well, you're absolutely right. And can I just just endorse the
point you're making? That's the problem you've got is
that if you, if you are not in control of your borders, even
though the number that come in illegally without a visa is very
(25:11):
small, it undermines the public acceptance of the larger number
that come in with visas. On that interesting point
actually was I was speaking to someone who's advised Biden on
this very issue, Frank Sharry, and has been a lifelong kind of
pro immigration campaigner here in the US who's been advising,
(25:34):
you know, in the UK and making really quite a similar point to
yours, which is if you want the permission to be compassionate
in a way, you also have to be, you know, quite tough when it
comes to particular borders, in particular the visuals of people
being able to come in through the back door as people see it.
One thing that really struck me in today's speeches, Donald
(25:56):
Trump says one thing. So he really, really, really
laid out an extraordinary attackon the UN in the hall.
And then afterwards he sits downwith Anthony Guterres and he
says the US is 100% behind the UN on Russia.
He criticizes European countriesfor selling oil or sorry, buying
oil from Russia. But then he comes out and he
(26:18):
takes a much tougher stance. And I just want to ask you about
that. Donald Trump has gone on true
social to say now Ukraine shouldnot just win this war, but win
back the territory that Russia has already started to take.
How do you respond to that? I.
Mean, if, if he has woken up thefact that Vladimir Putin is not
his friend and that the only wayto deal with this war is to
(26:46):
support the victim and help pushback against the aggressor, then
that's very much to be welcomed.But he, you know, he, he, he has
had in the past and I've seen, I've witnessed it first hand, he
has had in the past that sort offascination, affection for
Putin. I mean, he owns up to it
himself. Look at the red carpet welcome
(27:06):
he gave him in Anchorage. Was that a mistake in your
opinion of? Course it was.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean he look the the the way
for America to assist the end ofthe war in Ukraine is not to
bully the weaker party, Ukraine,the wrong party into submission.
(27:28):
It is to use Americans leverage power, you know, both economic
and military to force the Russians to back off.
That's what they've got to do. And there's been this anxiety
that, you know, this will trigger a nuclear war in Europe.
I think it's pretty clear that'snot going to happen.
(27:50):
And the, you know, look, you know, Putin, Putin is is put is
pushing, is pushing the edges, the envelope all the time.
You know, these overflights intoEstonia and Poland and not
accidents, These are, you know, they're pushing the envelope.
And so it's important that, you know, Trump is unequivocally on
(28:13):
the side of NATO. Except he goes much further than
any NATO leader other than him has gone today.
You know, when we ask Keir Starmer about whether or not
Ukraine should get back the territory that has been lost, he
would always say it's up to Ukraine what happens next.
Most people privately think it'sunrealistic that you know
Ukraine is going to be able to militarily push back.
(28:34):
Most people do. So I was surprised to read that.
And it's it's quite at odds witheverything the Americans have
been saying to date. So there'll be a few heads
spinning in Washington as well. Following the the twists and
turns of American policy on Truth Social is exhausting, but
clearly it's we've got to welcome the fact that there
(28:57):
appears now to be some greater solidarity with Ukraine.
And if that is followed up with action, and remember what Trump
said in his own speech, you know, peace is not achieved by
strongly worded letters, which he accused the UN of writing all
the time, but rather by action. Well, he's action man.
Now is the opportunity for him to do it the other.
(29:18):
Thing that was interesting aboutthe tree social was he talked
about NATO as if he wasn't part of it.
He's like, I'll give the weaponsto NATO, do what you want with
them. Correct.
I'd, I don't know, it's hard. Look, it's hard to pause and
rationalize all of this, but thethe direction of travel seems to
be in a more promising directionthan than it than it was
(29:39):
yesterday. But who knows where it will go
tomorrow? He went further than I've ever
heard him go before on climate, and he said some pretty
outrageous stuff on climate in the past.
He said it's a con. He said that, you know, the
carbon footprint is a hoax that's put out there by pretty
evil people. He obviously has an obsession
about wind power drill, baby drill.
(30:01):
We've heard before. You know, when we have these
debates around net zero in the UK, we can at least tell
ourselves our overall emissions are not a huge part of what's
going on in the world. This is the second biggest
emitter in the world. How worried were you by what you
heard? Yeah, it was a very full
throated denunciation of the science of global warming.
(30:22):
But, you know, with all due respects to Donald Trump, it
really doesn't matter what he thinks about global warming any
more than it matters what he thinks about gravity.
You know he physics cannot be denied.
Yeah, but it it matters in as much as if he's unwinding every
bit of climate progress in the US.
No, it absolutely matters in theUS, but the the reality is that
(30:46):
I think the global trajectory towards clean energy will
continue. The cheapest form of new
generation of electricity is nowin virtually every market in the
world, renewables, solar followed by wind backed up with
pumped hydro or batteries. I mean that is that that is the
(31:09):
cheapest solution without regardto the carbon cost.
I mean, nobody in a developed, nobody in Australia for example,
and we have a lot of coal, nobody in Australia would build
a new coal-fired power station regardless of what the, you
know, the emissions policies were.
So I think that the tragedy of this is that he's essentially
(31:33):
confirming and cementing the global leadership that China has
on clean energy technologies. It's the leader.
On solar, it's the leader in wind, it's a leader.
With batteries, it's the leader with electrolysis to make green
hydrogen and that that is just going to become greater and
greater. And, you know, if the US thinks
(31:55):
that it's going to, you know, build it's golden age on burning
fossil fuels, it will be out of step with the rest of the world.
But you see Trump, Trump's confidence is such that he's
quite prepared to say I'm right and everybody else is wrong.
I'm right, and all of those scientists are wrong and.
It's worth saying you do have a stake in some of this.
(32:17):
I do, I do, absolutely. I'm a renewable energy
developer. I've, I've been involved in the
industry and you know, I've started some big energy, clean
energy projects while I was Prime Minister.
But what I was simply going to say was when you see the scale
of the delegations there, over 500 people, big delegations from
China, India, all around the world, not so many Americans to
(32:39):
be fair, but you know, the, the move to clean heck to renewable
energy is proceeding at an enormous pace and, and nowhere
more so than in China. You don't know what Donald
Trump's obsession from from dealing with him.
You don't know what his obsession about wind is about.
I've got no, he obviously doesn't like the look of wind
(33:01):
turbines, but you know, I mean, I, I, I always say, well, I
personally, I think they're verybeautiful.
But but, but, but the, you know,they're, they're certainly much
more attractive than I, you know, an open open cut coal mine
or a, or a power state coal-fired power station.
And they they don't pollute. We know that Trump doesn't
(33:23):
really believe in multinational institutions, and the UN is top
of the list. But but giving that speech
today, do you think he was actually trying to kill the
organization? I don't.
Well, he's not a believer in it,but he, you know, the Trump's
view of the world is might is right.
(33:44):
OK, The. And he makes no bones about
that. the United Nations was founded to prevent might being
right. It was a reaction to the horrors
of the Second World War. And it was, you know, designed
to ensure as best could be done by international agreement that,
you know, the great will not be able to dominate the we can
(34:07):
trample on smaller countries sovereignty as they as they see
fit. And so the Trump, you know,
that's that's not Trump's real world.
He makes no bones about that. You know, this is a guy who's
threatened Canada, tried to coerce Canada into being the
51st state, you know, said that he will get Greenland, a
territory of Denmark. One way or the other.
(34:29):
He is, you know, he sees the world, I think more in a spheres
of influence where he, you know,the his only counterparties are
his equals in power or which arefirstly China and to a lesser
extent Russia, although hopefully he's falling out of
love with Vladimir. But the yeah, it's a look, he's
(34:52):
he has his views and his values are quite at odds with that.
That inspired the foundation of the United Nations.
And look, the United Nations hasplenty of faults and flaws, but
we're certainly better off with it than than without it.
Because without it, you would have no global forum of that
kind. And you would simply just have.
(35:13):
The rest of us would just be, you know, struggling to survive
with all of the decisions in theworld being taken by one or
other of the superpowers. But I can I can see why you want
to make middle powers great again because you represent one.
But we have no idea who's going to be running these middle
powers in a few years time and whether their interests will be
(35:35):
aligned with Donald Trump and might is right or not.
I mean Farage in the UK, possible Le Pen or Badella in
France. So the middle power thing may
have a very short shelf life. Yeah, well, yeah, but you see,
but the but the the problem is you may be, let's let's assume
you have a, you know, a Marine Le Pen or Jordan Vardella
(35:58):
becomes president of France after Emmanuel Macron.
Let's hope it's somebody more centrist like Eduard Philippe.
But but let's say you do have, you know, a a populist.
They're still going to run into,they're going to run into the
same problem. They run into exactly the same
problem because, you know, Trumpis not spreading an ideology.
(36:21):
It's not an ideology that that is that that purports to be
universal like communism was. I mean, it is this or or indeed
liberalism, economic liberalism was is purports to be.
This is his message is America first.
(36:43):
And so whether you are the rightwing or the left wing or the
centrist president of France, you're still going to have a
problem if the United States is run by somebody, whether it's
Trump or a successor, whose viewis that they will use this,
whatever strength they have and whatever leverage they have over
(37:03):
smaller countries to extract advantage from them to the
benefit of the United States. In other words, if dependence
becomes a vulnerability to be exploited as opposed to
something to be respected, then you're you're in trouble as a
middle power, a smaller country,no matter the politics of your
(37:26):
leader. Just on what you were talking
about there and what France has been doing, obviously Emmanuel
Macron has taken a huge lead here on recognizing Palestinian
statehood. That has been quite eye opening
to watch so many countries standup to the US on that point.
But but one thing Donald Trump said, which it was not a nice
thing to say, but I did wonder if there was some truth to it,
(37:47):
was he was critical of the UN because essentially it's a
talking shop. He basically said they write a
strongly worded letter and that's as much as they could do
and and Palestinian statehood being one example of it.
Isn't there some truth to the fact that it is a bit of a
toothless organization if it can't actually take action to
change things in conflicts like that one?
(38:08):
Well, I, I think that there is quite a lot of truth in it.
I mean it. Firstly, it is a talking shop.
So is a part, So is Parliament, so is the US Congress, so is a,
you know, board of directors, I mean.
Fair enough. Yeah, good point.
That that's, that's So what I mean the, the problem is that
does not have an army. It does not have the kinetic
authority to enforce its decisions.
(38:30):
And the Security Council, which is the executive, you know, wing
of the UN, you know, the GeneralAssembly is really only
advisory. The Security Council, which can
mobilize global action, can onlydo so with the concurrence of
all the permanent members. So any one of the the five
(38:53):
permanent members can veto action.
And, you know, in terms of, you know, any action that would be
seen as adverse to Israel's interests, the United States has
been a reliable veto there. And you know, they had the same
problem in the Cold War. So it's but that there are
(39:13):
plenty of flaws in the UNS system of governance.
But if they're not prepared, if the major powers are not
prepared to work together, then it does.
Yes, it does it. It's effect is very diminished.
What I don't get, Malcolm, is that he, he's so isolated now in
his position on Israel, as is Israel itself, and he really,
(39:36):
really wants that Nobel Peace Prize.
All he has to do is rein in the Israeli Prime Minister, tell him
to stop doing what he's doing inGaza.
And he's the only one who can dothat.
Why on earth do you think he's not doing it?
There is a very strong political, you know, body lobby
(39:57):
of support in America for Israel.
It's divided. The the so-called Jewish lobby
is not a monolith. The people that are much more
united in the attitudes towards Israel and what it's doing in
Gaza are the Christian evangelicals.
I agree, but nonetheless there is a lot, there remains a lot of
support, particularly on the right wing side of politics in
(40:18):
America. But you know, Netanyahu, who I,
I know well, is, I think is, youknow, he's the that and he's
got, I think the majority of Israelis now take this view.
And certainly most of his, his military leadership apparently
all take this view that the continuation of this war in Gaza
(40:43):
is not achieving any military objective and is doing untold
damage at a huge level of human suffering to the people of Gaza,
to the Palestinian people. I mean, it is, it's the, the,
the, the killing, the devastation, the starvation.
It's, it's, it's horrific. And if you want to look at it
(41:05):
from Israel's own point of view,Israel is more isolated, you
know, has fewer friends now thanit did before.
I mean, there was a massive sympathy for Israel after
October 7th, but that has now been largely dissipated.
And, you know, a very good old friend of mine, older in the
(41:25):
United States, Dick Armitage, said this to me.
You know, he died reasonably sadly, but a year or so ago,
Dick said that the he said that his generation in America was
solidly supportive of Israel. He said he didn't think his
children's generation were, but he said he's absolutely
(41:46):
convinced that his grandchildren's generation were
not. And so this is the if, if
support from the United States is a key factor for Israel,
which it always has been. Are you know, they they they're
if, if they have if they have lost and are losing younger
generations, then that is building up a huge problem for
(42:08):
them politically and strategically in the years to
come. And I think that's where, you
know, Netanyahu's had some extraordinary triumphs.
I mean, the action against Hezbollah, that various exploits
been considerable. I mean, they're offset by the
utter failure of October 7, of course, which, you know, at some
(42:30):
point they'll be an inquiry into.
But if, if in the long run, you lose the support of American
public opinion, then Israel is would be very, very much
diminished in terms of its ability to, you know, withstand
its critics and opponents both internationally and and
(42:53):
regionally. That was Malcolm Turnbull and
that is it for this week's edition of Trumbold.
I'll be back in London next week.
And Uska, you'll be in Washington, DC.
And we have no idea, speaking today, what Trump's world will
look like in seven days time. Probably quite dramatically
different from now, if the past is anything to go by.
(43:15):
See you next Wednesday.
You know, one of the scarcest commodities in politics is
authenticity, and Trump is very authentic.
Is it better to be authenticallybad than to be inauthentically
good? Well, that's a very good point.
Donald Trump has gone on true social to say now Ukraine should
not just win this war, but win back the territory that Russia
has already started to take. Trump said in his own speech
(00:21):
peace is not achieved by strongly worded letters, rather
by action. Well, he's action man.
Now it's the opportunity for himto do it.
Hello and welcome to Trump World, this time from New York
City. I'm Matt Frey.
And I'm Anishka Astana. We're both here in the city that
(00:43):
never sleeps, both of us not sleeping quite enough, I think
it's fair to say. And New York City is, in a way,
closed down for world leader convoys to shoot through, which
is why I just had to run throughManhattan to get here to be with
you, Matt. I think this is something like
my 12th UN General Assembly. It always comes at this time of
year in September, when it's still nice and warm and all you
(01:05):
really want to do is sit outsideon the pavement, have a, you
know, a beer and a cup of coffee.
But then you see everything is about barricades and police
roadblocks. And there are these delegations
from all over the world with their entourage and their
clipboards and their Secret Service agents walking through
the city. But because of Trump mainly,
even whenever he shows up, it's entertaining or alarming.
(01:29):
And today was definitely alarming.
I think he gave the most brazen speech I've ever heard him give,
especially to this crowd, insulting his hosts, the United
Nations. And remember, he of course,
denied visas to the Palestinian delegation, all 32 of them.
They, they couldn't even show up, even though the recognition
of Palestine was a massive issuein this General Assembly.
(01:54):
And he then had some bilateral meetings and one of them was
with President Zelensky. And he came out of that meeting
and, and said something he hasn't said at all since he took
over, which is actually that Ukraine is in a position to take
over all the territory it's lostto Russia, changing his tune
completely. And then astonishingly, he, he
(02:15):
put this all out on social media, he said at the end, and
good luck to you both. You know, I think to him, all of
it, it's not quite a joke, but it is sort of a game.
Well, it it definitely feels like it's a game show wherever
he goes, right back to when he dressed down Zelensky in
February in the White House. And his final kind of thought is
this will make great television.He's clearly always, always
(02:38):
thinking about this. And look, that speech was
extraordinary. We're going to go through it
with our guest later on, the former Australian Prime Minister
Malcolm Turnbull, who has been up there himself and who has had
many clashes with Donald Trump as well.
But yeah, before we do, it is kind of extraordinary to think
(02:58):
that he would put that out on Truth Social.
And also in it, he he talks as if he's not part of NATO.
He has this line where he basically says, yeah, we'll just
keep giving weapons to NATO and they could do whatever they want
with them. And, and in terms of like the
position we're at, you know, we have a situation where he
invites Vladimir Putin to Alaska.
He rolls out the red carpet literally for the Russian
(03:22):
President. He gets a bit annoyed when the
Russian President suggests that he wants to take the whole of
the Donbass region in order to try and do a deal.
But but the reality at the time,Matt, and I'm sure you've talked
to a lot of people about this. I've spoken to, I asked Keir
Starmer about this when he was here in Washington, DC.
(03:42):
If you ever ask them about whether or not Ukraine is going
to have to give up the land thatRussia has already seized, no
leader would say that. They'd have an answer on that.
They'd say it would be up to Ukraine.
But privately, behind the scenes, the assumption is that
that land is never going to be won back militarily by Ukraine.
(04:03):
So the idea that suddenly DonaldTrump would come in with this
statement, which would require ahuge offensive from Ukraine,
presumably would require a massive, you know, extra arming
by Europe and America, just seems mind blowing, but also
makes you question how seriouslyto take whatever the president
(04:24):
is saying. One thing that always intrigues
me about Trump is that whenever he does one of his many
pronouncements or signs, a declaration from the so-called
Resolute Desk that was put into the Oval Office by Abraham
Lincoln, there's not a single shred of paper on that desk.
I don't think he ever reads a single briefing note.
He might be told stuff, you know, maybe his briefing is
(04:44):
watching Fox News, but there's, I don't get the impression that
he does any homework whatsoever.There's not a shred of evidence
of that, that he knows the facts, that he's got the the
context, that he knows a little bit about the history.
And I think that's important, especially in the case of
Ukraine, because this isn't about land.
It's about, you know, Ukraine surviving as an independent
(05:08):
sovereign nation state. And I still don't think he
really understands that. And that must be incredibly
frustrating with someone like Zelensky, you know, if he pins
him up against the wall at the United Nations in some dreary
briefing room and, and tells himthe way it is and what he would
like. And Trump agrees.
But again, does he actually remember any of that stuff?
Does he act on it? The one thing that comes up and
(05:29):
you know, people I, I spoke to this week have pointed and you
know who, who worked with the administration have pointed this
out in a, in a very serious way.It's all about Donald Trump.
He is the change maker. He is the rainmaker, he's the
peacemaker. So when Donald Trump thinks that
things aren't going his way, that's when he gets upset.
So when he talks about Vladimir Putin, he repeatedly says, I
(05:51):
will change my policy here that doesn't even use the word
policy, but I will change what I've been doing or saying
because he has let me down. This is not about values.
This is not about the future of the Ukrainian people.
This is about him and his ego getting bruised.
And therefore he will act in a certain way.
It's all always about him. And that's what we saw at the
(06:14):
United Nations today. Here is this one man appearing
in front of this crowd. And, you know, they're not all
model Democrats, right? And some of them are dictators
and some of them are, you know, democratically elected.
But in that rambling, rasping litany of grievances and
pettiness and that whole thing about they never gave me the
(06:34):
contract to renew the plumbing at the UN headquarters back in
the 1980s. And you brought that up.
He spent more time talking aboutthe Teresa floor and the, the,
the, the, the parquet floor and all that nonsense in the UN
building, and it's not particularly nice.
He's got a point there, but still, he talked more about that
(06:55):
than about nuclear weapons. I mean, it's astonishing.
Yeah, but it is worth just goingthrough the different bits of
the speech that were quite, you know, arguably could be quite
consequential if actions actually match words and there
isn't necessarily evidence on each part that they will.
You know, on the UN, he was incredibly critical of the UN in
there. He repeated his claim that he
(07:15):
has ended 7 wars in. Seven months.
It's almost biblical. I think if you go and speak to
each of the countries individually, they, they, they
don't disagree. There's much more nuance on a
lot of that. But but then he comes out, he
speaks to, you know, the UN General secretary Anthony
Guterres. He says, oh, America is 100%
(07:35):
behind the UN. Obviously on Russia, he was
critical of European countries for buying Russian oil,
including some of his own allies.
But then he comes out and he takes a much tougher stance on
Russia, on climate. I mean, that is the strongest
attack on climate change and those who want to tackle the
climate crisis that I've ever heard.
(07:57):
He essentially called it a con and a hoax.
That there is a slight shift here, I think this week in the
UN that we've seen in terms of the way everyone's dealing with
Donald Trump. We have seen leader after leader
suck up to Donald Trump because they know that, you know,
America's still really importanton those of these issues and
they think that's the best way to his heart.
But on the issue of Palestine, we have seen something quite
(08:17):
different. And I think, you know, the fact
that we have seen so many countries, including the UK and
it is symbolic, Obviously it is symbolic rather than leading to
practical action at this time. But to basically stand against
the US and say they're going to recognize Palestinian statehood
did feel like quite a moment in terms of of where the UN was
(08:37):
going. And, and it did feel to me like
the US was it taking an increasingly isolated position
when it came to that. Which which is really, I think
quite alarming because the US onthis particular issue, together
with Israel has decided, you know, to go, you know, down the
yellow brick road to, to eternalwar.
(08:58):
I think. I mean, they're just Trump isn't
really that interested in in in ending the war in Gaza.
He says that he is. He's interested in bringing the
hostages home and then he might do something more dramatic about
ending the war. But but what we've seen, the
evidence suggests that he is wholeheartedly behind Benjamin
Netanyahu's war on Gaza and he is wholeheartedly behind
(09:20):
whatever the Israelis are doing in the West Bank.
He has not done nothing to stop the Israelis crossing any number
of red lines in both those cases.
And should Netanyahu say he's going to annex the annex the
West Bank? I don't think he'll stand in his
way. Yeah, all the signs are that
America won't do anything about that.
I mean, this speech in which basically Trump, you know,
(09:42):
attacked every kind of group that you could imagine, even if
afterwards he was more conciliatory, comes after a kind
of extraordinary couple of weeksin the US with the killing of
Charlie Kirk, the political conservative activist who was
very, very close to Donald Trump.
And one of the things that I just thought was so striking was
at that memorial, Charlie Kirk'swidow basically said, I don't
(10:04):
hate the person who did this. I've forgiven him.
She's a good Christian. Yeah, she's, you know, you
respond with love and Trump comes up and basically says,
yeah, I hate my opponents. And, and, and this is so
different. Trump 2.0 to the first time
round because he's, he knows what he wants to do and he is
taking action. He's clearly quite driven by
(10:24):
Stephen Miller, who's an absolutely key advisor, his
deputy chief of staff. And you know, in the days since
then and, and practically, it's very difficult to do this.
I can just explain why. But he says he's going to label
Antifa as a terrorist organization.
Now, just to be absolutely clear, Antifa does doesn't have
a leadership. It's a movement.
(10:44):
It's a left wing movement. And how you practically go about
doing what he's saying would be very difficult to see.
But he is taking action. And some of it feels like pretty
authoritarian action to crack down on free speech from the
left, for example, you know, in the wake of Charlie Kirk's
(11:06):
killing. And it feels like a very, very
momentous moment for the US It is time to bring in our guests
to explore all of that. Malcolm Turnbull, former Prime
Minister of Australia, thank youfor joining us.
Yeah. Great to be with you.
You've been up at that stage, and you've also presumably
watched US presidents at that stage.
(11:28):
Did that speech surprise you? Well, nothing really surprises
you with Donald Trump. He is.
He's one-of-a-kind, but it was a, it was not only very long, it
was very eccentric. You know, all of the discussion
about the broken escalator and the teleprompter were a bit odd.
And, you know, the savage attackon global warming, on the
(11:52):
science about global warming, the savage attack on other
countries, about migration. I mean, look, it's not
everything he says is wrong. I mean, interestingly, when I
spoke to the UNI Think in 2016, I made some points about
controlling unauthorized migration, which, you know, I
(12:14):
guess overlapped a bit with whatTrump said.
Obviously, I was much more measured.
But I did make the point that ifyou want to maintain support for
a multicultural society and in your own country, you need to be
able to control your borders. And so, you know, not everything
Trump says is wrong. I was stood right by him when he
(12:37):
went on to that escalator and helooked absolutely furious
because basically he and Melaniagot onto it and then it
immediately got stuck and he hadto walk up and, and as he walked
up, people were saying, oh, he'sfuming about about all of that.
Yes, generally it's better not to, you know, make that as
obvious as he did, but there yougo.
(12:59):
That's him. I mean, he look, you know, one
of the scarcest commodities in politics is authenticity.
And Trump is very authentic. You know, he is.
He gives the impression that he's saying what he thinks.
That doesn't necessarily mean you'll think the same thing from
one hour or one day to the next,but he comes across as
(13:19):
authentic. And I think that's one of his,
one of his political strengths. Even though he's often
authentically bad, is it better to be authentically bad than to
be inauthentically good? Well, that's a very good point.
I think politically it is you'rebetter off being authentic.
But if you are authentically wrong and authentically bad or
(13:39):
crazy, ultimately people won't vote for you.
But that inauthenticity and these politicians that sound
like they've been to politiciansschool and they're trying to be
somebody else. Ultimately people see through
that. And you know, particularly
nowadays, politicians do so muchmedia.
(14:02):
Trump does more media than he's done, more media this year than
the last three US presidents, you know, apart from himself
probably did in their whole terms.
But you know, in a country like Australia and, or indeed in the
UK where you're have to answer the Question Time in Parliament,
you're constantly, you know, doing interviews and engaging
(14:23):
with people. If you do sound like a political
stiff, then people will see through it.
I just wonder because, I mean, Italked to one of his people
today and, and they said, well, you know, it may have sounded
like a very insular speech, a very nationalistic, nativistic
speech, but he was addressing his crowd at home.
When you're on that stage, when you are on that stage, I mean,
(14:45):
surely you're talking to the audience in front of you, not
the audience, you know, in Kentucky or Milwaukee, or in
your case it would have been, I don't know, NSW or the Hunter
Valley, you know? All politics is local and so
every politician has got an eye on their domestic electorate and
Trump, Trump, you know, very much so.
(15:07):
So yes, you have but but obviously at the UN you're
seeking to engage a global audience.
And look, I think Trump was seeking to engage.
He was telling them that particularly the Europeans that
they're absolutely wrong on on migration.
So he, you know, he was savage in his attack there.
(15:27):
I mean, he, he's very much and you know, he's, he and Vance
both are quite shamelessly intervening in politics in
Europe. I mean, there's no, it's
perfectly clear that, you know, they, they support the nativist
political movements in Europe, whether it's Farage in the UK or
Marine Le Pen in France or the Afd in Germany or Orban, of
(15:50):
course, who's the gut Prime Minister in Hungary?
Without mentioning Orban by name.
Yeah, yeah. And, and the two countries that
do Orban, Hungary and Slovakia, which both run by, you know,
populist right wing governments that would, you know, be seen as
as quite Trumpian. But just on this point that he
(16:11):
really did go for Europe, he went for the UK, he went for
London with stuff that wasn't true.
I mean, it's suggesting to an audience, potentially of
millions, that Sharia law is coming in, in London, for
example. Suggesting to an audience of
billions. Billions.
But, you know, we have seen at the White House European leader
after European leader come in. And I mean, I think the word
(16:35):
sycophantic fits. Yeah.
They have gone out of their way to suck up to Trump.
And privately their teams tell you it's because this is how he
responds positively to things. And and maybe afterwards they
get their support on Russia, which we'll come back to.
But just does this show that sucking up to Trump doesn't
work? It absolutely doesn't work.
(16:56):
And look, I, unlike most of the people who write about this,
I've actually dealt with Trump and I had a very good
relationship with him. But I had a good relationship
with him for one reason and one reason only, that I won his
respect by standing up to him and having a blazing row with
him. At the beginning.
I wasn't, you know, perhaps the circumstances that caused that
(17:19):
to happen, but it worked out to be very good because he is, you
know, Trump. Trump is a strong man.
He's a bully and you know when he meets encounters somebody who
he can't bend to his will, he then negotiates and
accommodates. When you say you had a row with
him, and I'm trying to picture it in my mind, were you actually
(17:40):
shouting at each other? I mean, to what level did you
raise your voice? Well, it was a telephone call
and the the context was, was in January 2017.
He hadn't been president for very long.
I had done a deal with a Barack Obama to resettle asylum seekers
(18:01):
in the United States that we were not, we're not going to
resettle in Australia. And in return we were helping
the Americans out with some asylum seeker issues in return.
So it was, it was a deal. It was want to say it was a
deal, it was a contract, it was an agreement signed, you know,
signed, sealed and delivered as it were.
(18:21):
And Trump wanted to, was not, was not going to honour that.
And that's so the, so we had a big row about it.
And I stood my ground and I said, you know, you've, we have
an agreement with the United States of America and we expect
you to honour it. And he got very angry.
(18:42):
I mean, a lot of it. This is not a, I'm not revealing
any secrets. You know that most of the
transcript of the call, not all of it, thankfully.
Which bit didn't they publish onthe transcript?
Although some classic so well I I shouldn't go into it because
there were some things that werewere were quite classified.
Some FF bombers were dropped, Some cuss words.
(19:03):
Whoever leaked and out of the White House thankfully had had.
There was some redactions, I'm pleased to say.
I was just going to say, you sayyou've had a good relationship
with him, but I think you've called him chaotic, rude,
abusive and erratic and he's called you weak and ineffective.
I mean, it doesn't doesn't soundlike quite a great relationship.
(19:23):
Well, that's recently, but when I was in office after that we
had a good transactional relationship and you know, he, I
persuaded him not to impose tariffs on Australian,
Australian steel and aluminium for example.
Yeah, no, it was good. It was a very practical
(19:44):
relationship. And interestingly so that that
post he had on Truth Social having a go at me was because
he'd seen me on Bloomberg earlier this year doing an
interview in which I'd been asked how China would react to
the trade war. And I said they will take
advantage of it. They'll go on the charm
(20:05):
offensive. They'll use it to, you know,
they'll seek to be the reverse of Trump.
They'll be consistent where he'serratic, they'll be respectful
where he's abusive and angry. And of course, he that upset
him. But in fact, it's it's exactly
what's happened so. You know, having said that, as
they say, the greater the truth the greater the libel, so people
(20:27):
were always upset when you tell them the truth it.
Really struck me listening to the speech, which was more
abrasive than any speech he'd ever given at the UN and and
the, you know, the bar for that is pretty high, to be honest.
It struck me that you know what was once an aberration and
ignited laughter in the room andsmirks.
You know, he is, he is speaking to the gallery even on European
(20:50):
politics. And we may have President Marine
Le Pen in France based on an immigration ticket or Jordan
Badela after the next presidential election.
The Afd is doing really well in Germany, much better than it did
when Angela Merkel was in power.Nigel Farage in Britain, we've
talked about. I mean, he is, you know, the
stuff that he says today that sounds really offensive and
abrasive become often becomes tomorrow's reality.
(21:14):
And do you think the world is sort of caught up with Trump's
weird view of nativist view of politics?
Well, I, it's not entirely weird.
I mean, I, I, I, I know this sounds, I don't want to you to
think I've suddenly become a Trumpian.
But the bottom line, and I made this, we've, we've had been of
this view in Australia for a long time, as you know, but but
(21:36):
the bottom line is, and I expressed this in my own address
to the UN General Assembly, you know, when I'm back when I was
PM, is that you have to control your own borders.
Now, if you know, and if you, ifyou allow uncontrolled or what
the public regard as uncontrolled migration, you
(21:58):
know, which is essentially people smugglers, asylum seekers
just flooding across your borders, you fire up the
populist, right. I mean, it plays into the hands
of a Trump when Trump would not have got elected if Biden had
controlled the southern border. For sure it plays into the hands
of Farage and Albarn and the Afdand so forth.
(22:20):
I mean, Angela Merkel is a greatwoman, great leader, but she
made a colossal mistake in allowing 1,000,000 refugees from
the Syrian conflict zone to walkinto Germany.
A colossal I I understand the empathy and the compassion, but
it's a massive mistake. I I've heard you say on exactly
that, that perhaps that for example, led to Brexit.
(22:42):
Certainly contributed to Brexit,there's no doubt about that.
And that that argument, you know, I can totally see that
argument, the logic of that argument.
But we also have a situation where Donald Trump was basically
saying how how outrageous it wasthat the UN itself would help
these illegal aliens as they're coming across the border.
You talk about compassion. There seems to be like the idea
(23:03):
that people are actually seekingasylum, fleeing persecution,
fleeing conflict. It it, it's almost like we can't
even have a conversation about that anymore.
No, no, we've got, you've got tohave a look the, the, the
approach we've taken in Australia.
And I mean, I just, you know, I,I understand Australia is
unique. You know, we're an island.
We've got a lot of ocean betweenUS and everywhere else.
(23:24):
So I'm not suggesting that everything we do can be easily
done elsewhere, but we have a generous humanitarian program.
But we take the view that if youthat that anyone who comes here
as a refugee comes here because they have been, you know,
identified and selected and approved and given a visa.
(23:45):
OK. And I mean, I made this point to
Trump years ago in that notorious call.
I said to him, our position is that if there is a people
smuggler with a boat full of Nobel Prize winners, they still
won't get in. And because we've just learnt
over the years that the only wayyou stop people smugglers is to
deprive them of their product. You know, there's a lot of stuff
(24:07):
that Trump says that is, you know, just fiction really.
But at the heart of it, this point about that controlling
your own borders is really critical.
But they're also different groups of people aren't there.
I mean, in Britain as a case in point, 40,000 people on average
roughly in the last few years come over on small boats and
(24:27):
750,000 people are are brought in in a controlled way through
the official channels. And actually by, you know, by
kind of muddying the waters and blurring the lines between one
small group. That's got a very powerful
visual impact because you have this idea of a kind of reverse
Dunkirk of all these boats turning up.
That's what gets people upset. And then you've got the other
(24:48):
thing, which is actually quite official and above board, but
still too many people are comingin.
Well, you're absolutely right. And can I just just endorse the
point you're making? That's the problem you've got is
that if you, if you are not in control of your borders, even
though the number that come in illegally without a visa is very
(25:11):
small, it undermines the public acceptance of the larger number
that come in with visas. On that interesting point
actually was I was speaking to someone who's advised Biden on
this very issue, Frank Sharry, and has been a lifelong kind of
pro immigration campaigner here in the US who's been advising,
(25:34):
you know, in the UK and making really quite a similar point to
yours, which is if you want the permission to be compassionate
in a way, you also have to be, you know, quite tough when it
comes to particular borders, in particular the visuals of people
being able to come in through the back door as people see it.
One thing that really struck me in today's speeches, Donald
(25:56):
Trump says one thing. So he really, really, really
laid out an extraordinary attackon the UN in the hall.
And then afterwards he sits downwith Anthony Guterres and he
says the US is 100% behind the UN on Russia.
He criticizes European countriesfor selling oil or sorry, buying
oil from Russia. But then he comes out and he
(26:18):
takes a much tougher stance. And I just want to ask you about
that. Donald Trump has gone on true
social to say now Ukraine shouldnot just win this war, but win
back the territory that Russia has already started to take.
How do you respond to that? I.
Mean, if, if he has woken up thefact that Vladimir Putin is not
his friend and that the only wayto deal with this war is to
(26:46):
support the victim and help pushback against the aggressor, then
that's very much to be welcomed.But he, you know, he, he, he has
had in the past and I've seen, I've witnessed it first hand, he
has had in the past that sort offascination, affection for
Putin. I mean, he owns up to it
himself. Look at the red carpet welcome
(27:06):
he gave him in Anchorage. Was that a mistake in your
opinion of? Course it was.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean he look the the the way
for America to assist the end ofthe war in Ukraine is not to
bully the weaker party, Ukraine,the wrong party into submission.
(27:28):
It is to use Americans leverage power, you know, both economic
and military to force the Russians to back off.
That's what they've got to do. And there's been this anxiety
that, you know, this will trigger a nuclear war in Europe.
I think it's pretty clear that'snot going to happen.
(27:50):
And the, you know, look, you know, Putin, Putin is is put is
pushing, is pushing the edges, the envelope all the time.
You know, these overflights intoEstonia and Poland and not
accidents, These are, you know, they're pushing the envelope.
And so it's important that, you know, Trump is unequivocally on
(28:13):
the side of NATO. Except he goes much further than
any NATO leader other than him has gone today.
You know, when we ask Keir Starmer about whether or not
Ukraine should get back the territory that has been lost, he
would always say it's up to Ukraine what happens next.
Most people privately think it'sunrealistic that you know
Ukraine is going to be able to militarily push back.
(28:34):
Most people do. So I was surprised to read that.
And it's it's quite at odds witheverything the Americans have
been saying to date. So there'll be a few heads
spinning in Washington as well. Following the the twists and
turns of American policy on Truth Social is exhausting, but
clearly it's we've got to welcome the fact that there
(28:57):
appears now to be some greater solidarity with Ukraine.
And if that is followed up with action, and remember what Trump
said in his own speech, you know, peace is not achieved by
strongly worded letters, which he accused the UN of writing all
the time, but rather by action. Well, he's action man.
Now is the opportunity for him to do it the other.
(29:18):
Thing that was interesting aboutthe tree social was he talked
about NATO as if he wasn't part of it.
He's like, I'll give the weaponsto NATO, do what you want with
them. Correct.
I'd, I don't know, it's hard. Look, it's hard to pause and
rationalize all of this, but thethe direction of travel seems to
be in a more promising directionthan than it than it was
(29:39):
yesterday. But who knows where it will go
tomorrow? He went further than I've ever
heard him go before on climate, and he said some pretty
outrageous stuff on climate in the past.
He said it's a con. He said that, you know, the
carbon footprint is a hoax that's put out there by pretty
evil people. He obviously has an obsession
about wind power drill, baby drill.
(30:01):
We've heard before. You know, when we have these
debates around net zero in the UK, we can at least tell
ourselves our overall emissions are not a huge part of what's
going on in the world. This is the second biggest
emitter in the world. How worried were you by what you
heard? Yeah, it was a very full
throated denunciation of the science of global warming.
(30:22):
But, you know, with all due respects to Donald Trump, it
really doesn't matter what he thinks about global warming any
more than it matters what he thinks about gravity.
You know he physics cannot be denied.
Yeah, but it it matters in as much as if he's unwinding every
bit of climate progress in the US.
No, it absolutely matters in theUS, but the the reality is that
(30:46):
I think the global trajectory towards clean energy will
continue. The cheapest form of new
generation of electricity is nowin virtually every market in the
world, renewables, solar followed by wind backed up with
pumped hydro or batteries. I mean that is that that is the
(31:09):
cheapest solution without regardto the carbon cost.
I mean, nobody in a developed, nobody in Australia for example,
and we have a lot of coal, nobody in Australia would build
a new coal-fired power station regardless of what the, you
know, the emissions policies were.
So I think that the tragedy of this is that he's essentially
(31:33):
confirming and cementing the global leadership that China has
on clean energy technologies. It's the leader.
On solar, it's the leader in wind, it's a leader.
With batteries, it's the leader with electrolysis to make green
hydrogen and that that is just going to become greater and
greater. And, you know, if the US thinks
(31:55):
that it's going to, you know, build it's golden age on burning
fossil fuels, it will be out of step with the rest of the world.
But you see Trump, Trump's confidence is such that he's
quite prepared to say I'm right and everybody else is wrong.
I'm right, and all of those scientists are wrong and.
It's worth saying you do have a stake in some of this.
(32:17):
I do, I do, absolutely. I'm a renewable energy
developer. I've, I've been involved in the
industry and you know, I've started some big energy, clean
energy projects while I was Prime Minister.
But what I was simply going to say was when you see the scale
of the delegations there, over 500 people, big delegations from
China, India, all around the world, not so many Americans to
(32:39):
be fair, but you know, the, the move to clean heck to renewable
energy is proceeding at an enormous pace and, and nowhere
more so than in China. You don't know what Donald
Trump's obsession from from dealing with him.
You don't know what his obsession about wind is about.
I've got no, he obviously doesn't like the look of wind
(33:01):
turbines, but you know, I mean, I, I, I always say, well, I
personally, I think they're verybeautiful.
But but, but, but the, you know,they're, they're certainly much
more attractive than I, you know, an open open cut coal mine
or a, or a power state coal-fired power station.
And they they don't pollute. We know that Trump doesn't
(33:23):
really believe in multinational institutions, and the UN is top
of the list. But but giving that speech
today, do you think he was actually trying to kill the
organization? I don't.
Well, he's not a believer in it,but he, you know, the Trump's
view of the world is might is right.
(33:44):
OK, The. And he makes no bones about
that. the United Nations was founded to prevent might being
right. It was a reaction to the horrors
of the Second World War. And it was, you know, designed
to ensure as best could be done by international agreement that,
you know, the great will not be able to dominate the we can
(34:07):
trample on smaller countries sovereignty as they as they see
fit. And so the Trump, you know,
that's that's not Trump's real world.
He makes no bones about that. You know, this is a guy who's
threatened Canada, tried to coerce Canada into being the
51st state, you know, said that he will get Greenland, a
territory of Denmark. One way or the other.
(34:29):
He is, you know, he sees the world, I think more in a spheres
of influence where he, you know,the his only counterparties are
his equals in power or which arefirstly China and to a lesser
extent Russia, although hopefully he's falling out of
love with Vladimir. But the yeah, it's a look, he's
(34:52):
he has his views and his values are quite at odds with that.
That inspired the foundation of the United Nations.
And look, the United Nations hasplenty of faults and flaws, but
we're certainly better off with it than than without it.
Because without it, you would have no global forum of that
kind. And you would simply just have.
(35:13):
The rest of us would just be, you know, struggling to survive
with all of the decisions in theworld being taken by one or
other of the superpowers. But I can I can see why you want
to make middle powers great again because you represent one.
But we have no idea who's going to be running these middle
powers in a few years time and whether their interests will be
(35:35):
aligned with Donald Trump and might is right or not.
I mean Farage in the UK, possible Le Pen or Badella in
France. So the middle power thing may
have a very short shelf life. Yeah, well, yeah, but you see,
but the but the the problem is you may be, let's let's assume
you have a, you know, a Marine Le Pen or Jordan Vardella
(35:58):
becomes president of France after Emmanuel Macron.
Let's hope it's somebody more centrist like Eduard Philippe.
But but let's say you do have, you know, a a populist.
They're still going to run into,they're going to run into the
same problem. They run into exactly the same
problem because, you know, Trumpis not spreading an ideology.
(36:21):
It's not an ideology that that is that that purports to be
universal like communism was. I mean, it is this or or indeed
liberalism, economic liberalism was is purports to be.
This is his message is America first.
(36:43):
And so whether you are the rightwing or the left wing or the
centrist president of France, you're still going to have a
problem if the United States is run by somebody, whether it's
Trump or a successor, whose viewis that they will use this,
whatever strength they have and whatever leverage they have over
(37:03):
smaller countries to extract advantage from them to the
benefit of the United States. In other words, if dependence
becomes a vulnerability to be exploited as opposed to
something to be respected, then you're you're in trouble as a
middle power, a smaller country,no matter the politics of your
(37:26):
leader. Just on what you were talking
about there and what France has been doing, obviously Emmanuel
Macron has taken a huge lead here on recognizing Palestinian
statehood. That has been quite eye opening
to watch so many countries standup to the US on that point.
But but one thing Donald Trump said, which it was not a nice
thing to say, but I did wonder if there was some truth to it,
(37:47):
was he was critical of the UN because essentially it's a
talking shop. He basically said they write a
strongly worded letter and that's as much as they could do
and and Palestinian statehood being one example of it.
Isn't there some truth to the fact that it is a bit of a
toothless organization if it can't actually take action to
change things in conflicts like that one?
(38:08):
Well, I, I think that there is quite a lot of truth in it.
I mean it. Firstly, it is a talking shop.
So is a part, So is Parliament, so is the US Congress, so is a,
you know, board of directors, I mean.
Fair enough. Yeah, good point.
That that's, that's So what I mean the, the problem is that
does not have an army. It does not have the kinetic
authority to enforce its decisions.
(38:30):
And the Security Council, which is the executive, you know, wing
of the UN, you know, the GeneralAssembly is really only
advisory. The Security Council, which can
mobilize global action, can onlydo so with the concurrence of
all the permanent members. So any one of the the five
(38:53):
permanent members can veto action.
And, you know, in terms of, you know, any action that would be
seen as adverse to Israel's interests, the United States has
been a reliable veto there. And you know, they had the same
problem in the Cold War. So it's but that there are
(39:13):
plenty of flaws in the UNS system of governance.
But if they're not prepared, if the major powers are not
prepared to work together, then it does.
Yes, it does it. It's effect is very diminished.
What I don't get, Malcolm, is that he, he's so isolated now in
his position on Israel, as is Israel itself, and he really,
(39:36):
really wants that Nobel Peace Prize.
All he has to do is rein in the Israeli Prime Minister, tell him
to stop doing what he's doing inGaza.
And he's the only one who can dothat.
Why on earth do you think he's not doing it?
There is a very strong political, you know, body lobby
(39:57):
of support in America for Israel.
It's divided. The the so-called Jewish lobby
is not a monolith. The people that are much more
united in the attitudes towards Israel and what it's doing in
Gaza are the Christian evangelicals.
I agree, but nonetheless there is a lot, there remains a lot of
support, particularly on the right wing side of politics in
(40:18):
America. But you know, Netanyahu, who I,
I know well, is, I think is, youknow, he's the that and he's
got, I think the majority of Israelis now take this view.
And certainly most of his, his military leadership apparently
all take this view that the continuation of this war in Gaza
(40:43):
is not achieving any military objective and is doing untold
damage at a huge level of human suffering to the people of Gaza,
to the Palestinian people. I mean, it is, it's the, the,
the, the killing, the devastation, the starvation.
It's, it's, it's horrific. And if you want to look at it
(41:05):
from Israel's own point of view,Israel is more isolated, you
know, has fewer friends now thanit did before.
I mean, there was a massive sympathy for Israel after
October 7th, but that has now been largely dissipated.
And, you know, a very good old friend of mine, older in the
(41:25):
United States, Dick Armitage, said this to me.
You know, he died reasonably sadly, but a year or so ago,
Dick said that the he said that his generation in America was
solidly supportive of Israel. He said he didn't think his
children's generation were, but he said he's absolutely
(41:46):
convinced that his grandchildren's generation were
not. And so this is the if, if
support from the United States is a key factor for Israel,
which it always has been. Are you know, they they they're
if, if they have if they have lost and are losing younger
generations, then that is building up a huge problem for
(42:08):
them politically and strategically in the years to
come. And I think that's where, you
know, Netanyahu's had some extraordinary triumphs.
I mean, the action against Hezbollah, that various exploits
been considerable. I mean, they're offset by the
utter failure of October 7, of course, which, you know, at some
(42:30):
point they'll be an inquiry into.
But if, if in the long run, you lose the support of American
public opinion, then Israel is would be very, very much
diminished in terms of its ability to, you know, withstand
its critics and opponents both internationally and and
(42:53):
regionally. That was Malcolm Turnbull and
that is it for this week's edition of Trumbold.
I'll be back in London next week.
And Uska, you'll be in Washington, DC.
And we have no idea, speaking today, what Trump's world will
look like in seven days time. Probably quite dramatically
different from now, if the past is anything to go by.
(43:15):
See you next Wednesday.
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