Inside the psyche of 'daddy' Trump

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Speaker 1 Hey there, I'm Erin Park, and my new podcast, Expanse, Nowhere Man, is about why in 1999 a young American wandered into one of Australia's most deadly landscapes, alone with barely any water, on purpose.

Speaker 1 Spanning three decades and two continents, this story took me places I never imagined. Stick around at the end of this episode of Politics Now to hear a taste of what I've got for you.

Speaker 1 Today the Australian people have voted for Australian values.

Speaker 3 Government is always formed in a sensible centre, but our Liberal Party reflects a range of views.

Speaker 4 Politics is the brutal game of arithmetic, but no one's going to vote for you who don't stare for something.

Speaker 1 We've always been about the planet, but we've got to make sure that people have their daily needs met.

Speaker 4 People are starting to see that there is actually a different way of doing politics.

Speaker 2 Hello, and welcome to the party room. I'm Patricia Carvelis, and I'm joining you from Ronderi Country in Melbourne.

Speaker 1 And I'm Frank Kelly on the Gadigal land of the Aora Nation. And here, PK, it's been another whiplash of a week.

Speaker 1 On Sunday, the US joined Israel in the war against Iran, bombing the three nuclear facilities in Iran with its now infamous bunker buster bombs.

Speaker 1 Two days later, Donald Trump was declaring ceasefire, peace in the war. Hours later, that peace seemed to be shattered, and the boss had to step in again.

Speaker 4 You know what? We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what they're doing. Do you understand that?

Speaker 1 So what happens next, PK? John Lyons, ABC's America's editor, will join us shortly with his view from Washington, which is always great.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's a man in demand, and I don't think he's getting any sleep at the moment, but he loves it. So I know he's sort of thriving on the reporting.
Things are shifting so quickly, Fran.

Speaker 2 Very much looking forward to his commentary about the current state of play and the sort of broader ramifications for the world, the way Donald Trump is remaking in many ways the sort of post-World War II order.

Speaker 1 The Trump doctrine.

Speaker 2 Let's take a look from a sort of domestic lens if we can.

Speaker 2 The Albanese government has long been urging de-escalation and diplomacy from Gaza to now the Israel-Iran conflict, which is on this very tenuous ceasefire.

Speaker 2 But as we discussed last week, the language has started to shift, putting the onus on Iran to come to the table.

Speaker 2 And then after the US bombed and got involved, which we were sort of the weeks work so fast, we've almost forgotten how significant that is.

Speaker 2 And then Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong backed America eventually.

Speaker 4 The world has long agreed that Iran cannot be allowed to get a nuclear weapon and we support action to prevent that but that is what this is.

Speaker 2 The US action. So Fran, the Prime Minister didn't rush out with his response.
The opposition has of course,

Speaker 2 as you'd expect,

Speaker 2 launched themselves on this in a more ferocious way than I've seen on other things. Obviously Susan Lee trying to find a feat in a new opposition leader role.

Speaker 2 But on this this one, I think they were more critical about the delay. So let's just make up our minds about whether there was a delay.

Speaker 2 I know when we found out about the bunker busters, I was at my daughter's soccer game and I started ignoring the soccer game and throwing myself into the bunker busting bombs.

Speaker 1 You're such a great mum.

Speaker 2 I'm such a great mum. I was there.
It's very cold in Melbourne. Yes, that's true.
And I waited all day for the Prime Minister to say something. He didn't stand up, though, friend.

Speaker 1 No, he didn't. They put out a statement.

Speaker 1 Again, it was a statement urging peace and diplomacy, not taking a position there in that printed statement on the bombs itself.

Speaker 1 It wasn't till the next morning, so nearly 24 hours later, that the Foreign Minister Penny Wong hit the airwaves.

Speaker 1 And when she did, the declaration from Australia was that Australia backed the US action because Iran must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.

Speaker 5 We support action that the US has taken to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Speaker 1 And that was a statement that reflected comments that had come in that intervening 24 hours, thick and fast really from other leaders, including the UK's Kiostama and Mark Khani from Canada.

Speaker 1 PM came out mid-morning, so that's more than 24 hours later, after he had held a National Security Committee of Cabinet.

Speaker 1 Did they take too long, from I guess, my years of experience, that it did take an unusually long time for a Prime Minister to stand up after an event like this involving our closest ally and, as I said, that our other allies had come out in support of.

Speaker 1 Did this delay leave the Prime Minister looking a little uncomfortable on international affairs?

Speaker 1 I guess I thought that this is not his natural turf still I think the opposition is making much of this because this is comfortable turf for them.

Speaker 1 There's been a lot of last term calling him weak in the face of international pressure.

Speaker 1 Andrew Hastie who is acting foreign minister shadow minister this week you know called the government's response flat-footed.

Speaker 4 What yesterday demonstrated was that the Prime Minister's flat-footed. His instincts aren't great on this.

Speaker 1 I do think this delay left the Prime Minister looking like this was not his instinctive territory, so he needed to take time to get his response right. What do you think?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think that the idea that he's not comfortable on the international stage is inaccurate or is only partly true. Yeah.
So on the Middle East, I think he's very across the issues.

Speaker 2 I think he's made a deliberate decision to hold back because he doesn't want Australia to be held to account for this.

Speaker 2 And what I mean by held to account, well, you'll remember when the Greens were talking in the last parliament about even

Speaker 2 our own military equipment or our own involvement potentially in Gaza. He really, really pushed back on that.

Speaker 2 He wants us to be a non-player in the Middle East. Now, this is a very different situation, of course to where we found ourselves in the 2000s where John Howard absolutely was involved.

Speaker 2 We sent troops to the forever wars. We were very much involved in the Middle East, right?

Speaker 2 So the traditional hawks, those on the more right of politics on defence, are infuriated by the Prime Minister trying to make us smaller as a country.

Speaker 2 But I believe he's actively trying to do that. So the delay is part of that story.
He doesn't want to be muscling in on the Middle East. He doesn't want to be held to account.

Speaker 2 He doesn't want that to be his responsibility. But on other issues, and this is, here lies potentially the contradiction.
So, you know, that Middle East, that's not a theatre for us. But on Ukraine.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he was quick out of the blocks.

Speaker 2 Quick out of the blocks about us potentially being involved with a peacekeeping force. And my own thesis about which spaces he's more comfortable on are ones that are not as contested territory.

Speaker 1 Exactly right. I think that that assessment.

Speaker 1 And I also wonder how much of that could be seen not just as an aversion to wanting to get sort of knocked around by either side in this very, very divisive conflict, but also to keep the tone steady here in Australia.

Speaker 1 You know, things blew up so horribly in the last year or so since the Gaza conflict. There was all those anti-Semitic attacks on the streets.

Speaker 1 You know, Muslim Australians were were actually being attacked in public places. It really got out of hand.

Speaker 1 It was

Speaker 1 a hot, rabid debate here in Australia. And maybe Anthony Albanese thinks this is a responsible position to lead in our nation to keep the tone civil, to keep the temperature down.

Speaker 1 I guess maybe that's part of driving this.

Speaker 2 I think that might be part of driving this, but I think it's a bit, it's deeper. He wants to, if I can use the language of neutralisation, he wants to kind of neutralise the issue.

Speaker 2 And you'll see the government's activities, which I want to move to, has been, as in many ways it should be, our citizens first.

Speaker 2 So they've been working on evacuating people out of Israel. There's people stuck in Iran.
And that's been a little messy too, though, Fran. And I don't know if the government's entirely responsible.

Speaker 2 Obviously, the DFAT and the department is, but government is held to account ultimately. That hasn't gone according to plan.

Speaker 1 Not entirely. I mean, Pennywon was pretty quick out with the fact that the Australian government was offering to help people, get people home, but it was difficult because the airspace was closed.

Speaker 1 It was almost impossible at first. Eventually, they did open up, you know, some land border crossings, but then these proved tricky because we don't control the borders, so other countries do.

Speaker 1 I think the right message from the government was, though, that, and they kept bringing this forward, this is what we're doing. We're sending the defence forces, we're doing everything we can.

Speaker 1 And I think that is the message. You know, I said I didn't know that it would cost the government much.

Speaker 1 The fact that Anthony and Albanese took 24 hours to come out and say something about the US bombing. I think this is the important message that the Australian government knew.

Speaker 1 A bit like during the cyclone and floods, PK, the Australian government knows that the message it's got to be displaying there to the Australian people is, we've got your back. We're there for you.

Speaker 1 We're doing everything we can using every instrument of government.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's more of that in the couple of days.

Speaker 2 Look, I just want to pivot the conversation before we bring John in and get into the global affairs, which I think is keeping us all up at night, literally up all night. Like I've just

Speaker 2 so stressful. And it's just also captivating to see just the developments there so fast.
But just to Australia again. And a very significant speech from Susan Lee at the National Press Club.

Speaker 2 David Spears and I talked about it on Politics Now yesterday. We kind of described it a little.

Speaker 2 We'll put this to you, Fran, because I always want to hear the Fran take as the sort of anti-Dutton speech in many ways.

Speaker 2 It was from start to end, from acknowledging traditional owners to just telling her own personal story, a story which is very different to Peter Dutton's, right, because of their own lived experience.

Speaker 2 And one of those big, big elements, Fran is gender. And she did lean into gender.

Speaker 1 She sure did. And yes, I guess you're right.
I hadn't seen it in that framework, but you're right, starting with that, you know, acknowledgement of country, very,

Speaker 1 very different to, as we know, Peter Dutton's view on these things. The fact that she was at the press club for a start, Peter Dutton never went there in his years of leadership.

Speaker 1 She's sending a message about her approach.

Speaker 3 Today will be my first address as federal leader of the Liberal Party to the National Press Club, and it will not be my last.

Speaker 1 You know, repeating that line, as she did too, that the Liberal Party was smashed. She was no way was she being pugnacious in this.
She was being, it was more the Peter Beatty approach, if you like.

Speaker 1 I was wrong, me a culpa, we were smashed. There's no way around that.
Let's just call it as it is. And

Speaker 1 humility here, we need to figure out what went wrong.

Speaker 3 So let's be honest and upfront about last month's election.

Speaker 3 We didn't just lose.

Speaker 3 We got smashed. Totally smashed.
What we as the Liberal Party presented to the Australian people was comprehensively rejected.

Speaker 3 The scale of that defeat itself.

Speaker 1 And then her interpretation of what went wrong was so different, I think, too, to that Peter Dutton approach, which, you know, when she was asked about the Teal seats, for instance, formerly Liberal Heartland, she said, yes, we need to win those voters back.

Speaker 1 So Peter Dutton lent so hard into the outer urban regional family vote. She's saying, no, we're a modern party.
We need to reflect modern Australia.

Speaker 1 That includes inner-urban seats that have always been our heartland.

Speaker 1 And she underlined this, PK, by calling not just the review into the election campaign itself, but to calling another review into the very meaning of the Liberal Party.

Speaker 1 So that's an implication, really, that the Liberal Party has lost its way under past leaders including Peter Dutton. They no longer really understand what they stand for.

Speaker 1 What they need to stand for is modern Australia and the fact that she's calling this review is really underlying the fact that acknowledging we don't represent modern Australia. Who are we?

Speaker 1 What do we stand for? What is our meaning? That's a pretty big admission.

Speaker 2 It is a big admission. I had Tony Abbott on afternoon briefing just, you know, literally within two hours of her giving that speech.
Now, he backed her in, as you would expect publicly, right?

Speaker 2 You know, said the sort of polite things about her introducing herself and her doing well at the press club speech, but then went on to say they didn't lose the last election because they were too right-wing.

Speaker 4 Was not that we were too right-wing, it was that people didn't know what we stood for.

Speaker 4 And the last thing that we want is a wishy-washy Liberal Party that is on most issues indistinguishable from the Labor Party.

Speaker 2 I then said to him, are you suggesting she's being wishy-washy? No, no, no, that's not what I'm suggesting. Well, okay.

Speaker 2 She will face so much resistance to this direction. Watch.
And she already is. Well, she is in a muted way.
It will ratchet up.

Speaker 2 She announces this net zero working group with the coalition. Look, you know, sure, they've got to do it.
I think the point that they make, some of the right-wingers, we never had a discussion.

Speaker 2 It's a reasonable point. I think having discussions are important in political parties.

Speaker 2 How to bring them all together, honestly, good luck to to her because there are some that do not want to get on board with this. Quotas is a big question, of course.

Speaker 2 She clearly wants to get more women in. She says she's going to be a zealot about it.

Speaker 3 Now, I'm agnostic on specific methods to make it happen, but I am a zealot that it actually does happen.

Speaker 3 If some state divisions choose to implement quotas, that's fine. If others don't, that's also fine.
But what is not fine is not having enough women. As the first woman leader...

Speaker 2 Executing, though, is hard, even if you're passionate about it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the zealotry was interesting to me because, you know, she's been a known public figure, political figure at a senior level for many, many years.

Speaker 1 And I had never registered zealotry when it came to women's issues. I went back and looked since that speech.
And yes, she has done some very strong things in the parliament.

Speaker 1 So I think perhaps it's fair to say that she is a zealot. And she made some interesting, very confiding almost admissions in that National Press Club speech.

Speaker 1 She said it was personal, but she got very personal when she talked about sexual harassment in the workplace and acknowledged she'd been there, talked about coercive control and the impact of that on women and how we need to deal with this

Speaker 1 in the area of family and domestic violence. And she said, I've been there.
So she was very personal and you could see that that would fuel zealotry.

Speaker 1 But what is she going to bring to this in a leadership style to actually deliver?

Speaker 2 Yeah, well she's got to go in all guns blazing because she's only going to have a short time before people start tearing her down. So she's got this window of opportunity.

Speaker 2 That's my own prediction from watching politics for a long time. I want to talk about the world again.

Speaker 1 Should we bring in John Lyons? So let's do it.

Speaker 2 John Lyons is the ABC's America's Editor. Welcome to the party room.

Speaker 4 Thanks, Patricia. Thanks Fran for having me.

Speaker 1 Oh John, it's fantastic to have you. I can't believe you've got time to talk to us.

Speaker 1 You've been bobbing up all hours of the day and night there from Washington because it's been another turbulent week. I think that's an understatement on the global stage.

Speaker 1 But, John, I think it's fair to say, you'd have to say it's been a good week for Donald Trump. The U.S.
launched those strikes on the three nuclear facilities in Iran.

Speaker 1 That did unleash initially concerns the Israel-Iran war might escalate into a wider regional conflict.

Speaker 1 But within 48 hours, the US President was back on his social media platform declaring a ceasefire was agreed in capital letters, I might add.

Speaker 1 This is a triumph of military and diplomatic might, isn't it? Or do you think it's too early to make that claim?

Speaker 4 Well, Fran, it's always a wild ride here. One thing I've learnt in my two months here now, uncovering Donald Trump, is it changes by the hour.

Speaker 4 What I'm starting to see, though, is beneath all of the apparent madness, I'm starting to see the method, how he operates, and actually through all of the fog of changing and unpredictability, there's a modus operandi coming through with Donald Trump.

Speaker 4 And it's sort of a, it's a shock and awe. And it's all about getting people to the negotiating table.
That clearly is the thing that motivates him.

Speaker 4 Now, with Iran, for example, he drops 14 bunker buster bombs. And now the US and Iranians are about to sit down and negotiate.
With China, he hits them with 145% tariffs. There's shock.

Speaker 4 American consumers are in uproar because they're going to have to pay more for their iPhones. Then he's got them down to the table.

Speaker 4 Ukraine, Vlodymir Zelensky, we saw him savage him in the White House. Donald Trump then cut off military aid.
He cut off U.S. intelligence for five or six days.
Then he gets him to the table.

Speaker 4 So I'm starting to see this, this is a pattern that this is the shock and the awe, and then the negotiations begin.

Speaker 2 That's a fascinating insight in terms of the order in which he executes all of this.

Speaker 2 He's been warning that while both Israel and Iran are tired and exhausted and also that great progress was made to end the war, fighting could start up again.

Speaker 4 And they're both tired, exhausted. They fought very, very hard and very viciously, very violently.

Speaker 4 And they were both satisfied to go home and get out.

Speaker 4 And can it start again? I guess someday it can. It could maybe start soon.

Speaker 2 But John, he was already downplaying the likelihood of a deal with Iran about their nuclear program. Isn't that the key here? Like that they don't have a nuclear program? Isn't that the whole point?

Speaker 4 Look, there are all sorts of mixed messages from him. But when you think about what we saw in the last few days, it's quite historic.

Speaker 4 We saw publicly, not privately, because we've always heard of private phone calls between U.S.

Speaker 4 presidents and Israeli prime ministers, we saw publicly a US president order an Israeli military mission in air, a mid-air mission to abort their mission and return and not drop bombs.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was extraordinary.

Speaker 4 That's the wild part of it.

Speaker 4 Then we saw the outburst.

Speaker 4 And so he surprises you at every point, like he met the new leader of Syria, who's been a hardline jihadist in his time.

Speaker 4 And he thought he was a wonderful, beautiful man, he said, you know, good looking and strong.

Speaker 4 His fascination with the North Korean leader, you know, so, and with Vladimir Putin. So one of the many themes of this...
this Trump presidency is he seems to be fascinated by strong men.

Speaker 4 He seems to love men who are prepared to exert power. He respects that.

Speaker 4 And he's in that conservative thing of it probably takes him longer to engage in a war, but when he does make that decision, here are the 14 bunker buster bombs.

Speaker 4 Whereas Barack Obama was the centre-left guy, you know, all kumbaya, but he was consistently involved in drone attacks and whatever, and a lot of civilians were killed.

Speaker 4 Donald Trump seems to be hard to get to the line, and then once he makes a decision, he gets it up to 10, you know, a volume of 10 out of 10.

Speaker 1 Yeah, as you say, I mean, that was dominant behaviour, what he did there with Netanyahu saying, turn those planes around, and Netanyahu did. Is it dealmaker or is it bullying, I wonder?

Speaker 1 And how are Americans see it? Where you are in the U.S. I mean, Donald Trump promised to be a peacetime president to end the war in Ukraine in a day.
Well, that hasn't happened.

Speaker 1 In fact, the intensity of that war is more deadly than ever right now. The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza continues to rage.
He's dropped these bombs on Iran.

Speaker 1 The MAGA stalwarts are all about spending money and focus on Americans, not on foreign wars. But at the same time, this has been a display of U.S.
dominance, supremacy.

Speaker 1 That's just the sort of thing to make a president more popular, not less, isn't it? Is that where sentiment is at right now in the US?

Speaker 4 Look, from his own base, the majority of people who elected him love what he's doing on borders.

Speaker 4 Every time there's a raid, I was in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago for those protests because the immigration and customs authorities were storming into workplaces, turning up to workplaces.

Speaker 4 If someone looked Spanish, looked Hispanic, demanding to see their papers. There were pictures of people being taken away.
Americans love that. That's a big winner for him.

Speaker 4 And so every so often you see him intensify those raids. Iran,

Speaker 4 it was short, it was clinical, it was two or three hours of bombing. And Americans here are so fatigued.

Speaker 4 One thing I've discovered being back here again, I lived here once before, is Americans are tired and fatigued of foreign wars.

Speaker 4 You know, their kids, their grandchildren, grandsons, granddaughters, we remember the Washington Post running on their website, you know, hundreds of names of people killed in Iraq.

Speaker 4 Little American villages, you know, where American towns, where the coffin comes in with the flag draped on it.

Speaker 4 Someone who's been watching Trump for a long time said to me the other day his greatest fear is having to be there when bodies, coffins come back with American flags on them which sort of doesn't fit with the tough guy image and so I think that on the Iran issue if they put ground troops in there it would have been a big backlash Steve Bannon urged him not to had lunch with him a week before the thing the Iran attack and urged him not to do it Tucker Carlson you know he's got all of these people who are tell in his ear telling him don't do it.

Speaker 4 He did it and he's justified it on the basis that I've done this historic thing. It's blown apart the Iranian nuclear program.
There's not much love in America for the Ayatollahs in Tehran.

Speaker 4 And so for him,

Speaker 4 it's very little political risk.

Speaker 2 But at the same time, there was this report, of course, from CNN and also, I think it was the New York Times from memory,

Speaker 2 which talked about the original, it's a Pentagon paper saying that basically there wasn't much success when it came to the bunker-busting bombs and whether they were able to penetrate.

Speaker 2 Now, I've heard contested ideas on that, others saying it's too early to call, there needs to be more assessments, but he got so angry at the sort of, you know, the fake news and the whole kind of way that he sort of lost his marbles really in many ways over the reporting, John.

Speaker 2 What did you make of that display?

Speaker 4 Well, part of the problem of the fog of intelligence, especially with a president who doesn't honour the intelligence agencies as independent.

Speaker 4 When I lived here last time, Bill Clinton was the president.

Speaker 4 And, you know, the Pentagon, the Joint Chief of Staff, the Department of Justice, State Department, these were agencies that upheld the beacon of American democracy.

Speaker 4 So the president would get all sorts of advice on his desk from credible sources. Now,

Speaker 4 because Donald Trump has essentially removed the people at the top who he thought were resistant to his vision, it's hard to know whether you can rely on what comes out now.

Speaker 4 The CIA has now come out, or the Trump people are saying the CIA is saying in fact it caused major damage to the nuclear facilities, whereas the Defence Intelligence Agency, as you say, PK, part of the Pentagon, actually said, no, it only caused minimal damage, that it'll only set them back a few months.

Speaker 4 So we don't know who to believe, but we do know that this is a president who says his own intelligence agencies are wrong.

Speaker 4 He said that the other day, and he said Tulsi Gubbard, the head of national intelligence, intelligence, is wrong.

Speaker 4 So why suddenly do we believe the CIA if the President himself says his own intelligence agencies are unreliable?

Speaker 1 John, talking about, you know, PK mentioned a display there, the displays from this US President are

Speaker 1 mind-blowing. I mean, I've been bamboozled at the same time, transfixed by his social media hyperactivity throughout this whole Israel-Iranian war.

Speaker 1 You know, he's announcing defense and diplomatic strategy day and night, all through the night, on his truth social posts.

Speaker 1 Really major announcements like a ceasefire or a bombing, you know, there in capital letters. Usually a leader would hold a press conference to announce these things.

Speaker 1 He does this with such flowery, hyperbolic, dramatic posts, social media posts. How is the Defence and National Security Establishment dealing with this, his own cabinet?

Speaker 1 And what does America think of it?

Speaker 4 It's quite remarkable.

Speaker 4 This is the, having been here now, it's clear to me, this is the ultimate television show, television reality series, the Trump presidency, because whatever people say about Donald Trump, he's the most open,

Speaker 4 accessible president in history compared to his predecessor, Joe Biden, who didn't have a press conference for five or six months. No one could get near him.

Speaker 4 They were obviously protecting him because they realized that his cognitive abilities were deteriorating and so they tried to keep him away from anybody.

Speaker 4 You know, hence he didn't recognize George Clooney, etc. But with Donald Trump, whatever people say about him, everything he does is out there.
Every day he has journos into the Oval Office, right?

Speaker 4 They're not always the toughest journos, but there's a mixture of them go in and out. And he's giving a constant narrative of what he's doing.

Speaker 1 The reality TV show.

Speaker 4 Well, he sits there with his executive orders and it's fascinating to watch it. There's a guy stands next to him.

Speaker 4 I'd love to actually interview this guy who has to summarize what's in these black folders, you know. And Trump will say, What's this one?

Speaker 4 And he'll say, Oh, this is banning wooden spoons and replacing them with plastic spoons in all of the government agencies. And Trump says, Yeah, great.
I hate wooden spoons. They're horrible.

Speaker 4 And sharks are tough enough to survive if a few of these get in the ocean, you know. So you get this running commentary of Donald Trump.
And it's all out there, like he exploded the other day.

Speaker 4 We heard his language.

Speaker 4 He exploded, in fact, three weeks ago, he exploded at one of the journals, I think she's a French journal, because she said to him, you realize that on Wall Street now,

Speaker 4 your nickname is Taco. And he said, sorry, what? And she said, well, Trump always chickens out.
that he comes up with these tough tariffs on China, et cetera, but always backs down.

Speaker 4 And he said, sorry, what did you say? They're calling you Taco. Trump always chickens out.
And he snapped and he looked at her and he said, do not ever say that again. Right.
This was the order.

Speaker 4 This was him telling her.

Speaker 4 And it showed me his sensitivity. And I think that that actually

Speaker 4 wounded him.

Speaker 4 The idea that people were mocking him on Wall Street. So I think when it came to Iran and there was all this suggestion, was he prepared to be tough enough?

Speaker 4 And Netanyahu saying, do it, I think that he's very conscious of the taco nickname.

Speaker 2 Now, of course, the taco stuff absolutely really kind of did.

Speaker 1 Hell of a way to make defense decisions, though.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, you know, like we've known this man in

Speaker 2 this version of his life for the last 10 years. People understand him quite well, actually, in a weird kind of way, because he's been so present in our lives.

Speaker 2 He made a lightning visit to the NATO summit in The Hague overnight, and the Europeans have really rolled out the red carpet and laid out the schmoozing.

Speaker 2 The NATO chief calling him, which has completely broken me, he called him Daddy.

Speaker 4 You can't stop him. Let him fight for about two, three minutes, then it's easier to stap him.
And then daddy has to sometimes use strong language to do it. You have to use strong language.

Speaker 4 Every once in a while, you have to use a certain word.

Speaker 2 It was a charm offensive. He's no fan of NATO, but if they got him over the line by kind of sucking up to him and telling him how wonderful he is, John, I mean, that was obviously the strategy.

Speaker 4 Well, I think since the Zelensky meeting in the White House, I think that was a turning point.

Speaker 4 I think there would have been leaders all around the world, including Australia's Prime Minister, who would have looked at that and thought, I don't want that.

Speaker 4 And then since then, the deference, the grovelling.

Speaker 4 You know, I saw the Irish Prime Minister come through here recently and you'd expect the Irish to have a bit of the old sort of fire in them. And he sat there.
I thought, this will be interesting.

Speaker 4 The Irish won't cop the Donald Trump treatment. And the Irish Prime Minister started saying how, you know, we have a wonderful resort in Ireland that you built.

Speaker 4 And, you know, it's the staff of the best it's a wonderful place to go

Speaker 4 or it might have been the Irish president one of the Irish leaders and basically and then Sakia Starmer arrived a couple of days later and he arrived with an invitation from the king

Speaker 4 and he had this envelope in his hand and he said I've got this present for you mr.

Speaker 4 President and you could see Donald Trump almost like a kid trying to get it out of his hand and Starmer explained no other leader Mr.

Speaker 4 President has been invited twice to meet the king You are in a league of your own.

Speaker 4 And so, and then it came Cyril Ramaphosa from South Africa, who didn't quite read, get the memo that you've just got to grovel.

Speaker 4 And so he's pushed back a bit. And then that's when Donald Trump said, okay, to the assistants, turn the lights off, turn the lights down.

Speaker 4 And they suddenly had this display on the screen of, you know, atrocities against white South Africans. And so I think people are scared of Donald Trump.

Speaker 4 I know from going to the Middle East, I know that groups like Hezbollah are scared of him. When he makes a threat against Hamas, so he's got this aura about him.

Speaker 4 Yet people say he's a bit of a peacemaker. He doesn't like war.
He doesn't like to stay in wars. And yet he's created this fear factor, which is sort of working for him.

Speaker 1 It sure is working for him. I mean, you know, he's been on and on about NATO since Trump 1.0.

Speaker 1 He's gone in hard in these first few months of this presidency, you know, threatening, well, not just threatening, pulling out basically from US support from Ukraine based on money, really.

Speaker 1 Now we've seen the NATO leaders open their wallets big time overnight on defence spending, agreeing to boost their nation's defence spending to 5% of GDP, which is a huge lift.

Speaker 1 I mean, this is another concrete victory for Donald Trump, isn't it?

Speaker 4 It's a huge victory, Fran. This is a stunning victory.

Speaker 4 All of these member countries of NATO, from Lithuania to Latvia and small countries like that, none of them wanted to increase their funding because they're going to have to cut all sorts of other stuff.

Speaker 4 And he's been on about this. And look, he's got a point on NATO.
And his point is that basically we are subsidizing your security.

Speaker 4 And, you know, I've been to a NATO conference and it sort of struck me that NATO is the world's largest sort of home insurance policy.

Speaker 4 You pay money and if someone burgles your house, it's like a neighborhood watch.

Speaker 4 Someone burgles your house or Vladimir Putin burgles Moldova and comes across your border, you make the phone call to Washington and you'll have the American cops on your doorstep within an hour or two.

Speaker 4 It's the world's largest insurance policy. And the other countries haven't been paying sufficient premiums.
They haven't been adjusted by 2% or 3% every year.

Speaker 4 So when Donald Trump says, why should we subsidise the security of all of you, he's got a point.

Speaker 4 But how did he get them to come to this point, to have the head of NATO texting him, telling him, thanking him for his great leadership? Suddenly,

Speaker 4 the Trump doctrine is taking hold.

Speaker 4 Trump's winning the day now. For all of the mocking of him, Trump's now got raw power and he's loving it and he's using it.

Speaker 1 And what does that mean for Australia then? Because, you know, we're not at NATO at a leadership level.

Speaker 1 Our Deputy PM was there, our Defence Minister. But we we are under pressure publicly from the US, from the US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, to lift our defence budget to 3.5%,

Speaker 1 which is a long way from where it is right now. It's set to rise to 2.33% over the next eight years, so that's a huge amount of money.

Speaker 1 Does this put pressure, the fact that all the NATO countries have signed up, does this put, how much pressure does this put Australia under, do you think?

Speaker 1 And are you hearing any of that there in Washington?

Speaker 4 Look, yes, there is pressure. If Australia plays this the right way, Australia's actually in quite a good position.
I'll just briefly explain why.

Speaker 4 Previous

Speaker 4 U.S.

Speaker 4 presidents and Australian prime ministers, when I've been here working here before for the Sydney Morning Herald or the Australian Prime Ministers, would come through and always put the argument to the US President of the day: listen, we've been shoulder to shoulder with you in every war, you know, Vietnam, Iraq, South Korea, you know, we're your greatest friend, and you know, and it's worked quite well.

Speaker 4 For Donald Trump, that means nothing. You know, he is completely unsentimental.
He is just, when you walk into a room with him, it's the old you're fired, apprentice, the art of the deal.

Speaker 4 What can you offer me? Now, I think that puts Australia in a good position. We have one of the best assets we could take to the table, Pine Gap.

Speaker 4 The Americans need Pine Gap. Pine Gap's

Speaker 4 America's eyes into China. It's very hard for

Speaker 4 the Americans to have human intelligence in China, and they rely on Pine Gap. Pine Gap looks across the whole Middle East.
It looks across China. It can listen in on conversations in China.

Speaker 4 And so we have that card. And intelligence people have told me in Australia that even at Pine Gap, there's information they get the Americans that they don't even tell the Australians about.

Speaker 4 It's so sensitive. We have that.
and we have the Marines rotating in northern Australia.

Speaker 4 So I think what Australia needs to do very politely with the right, you know, Trump whispering style, you know, you don't confront him straight on.

Speaker 4 You go around him rather than through him, but say, listen, we have a great asset. We are your eyes and ears in the Indo-Pacific.
We can be at the front line of your battle with China.

Speaker 4 And I think that's enough to make him think, hey, guys, thank you. You're giving me something.
You're not freeloading.

Speaker 2 Okay, so John, big question. When you've sort of set the framing that this point, because obviously things can change dramatically on the international stage, Donald Trump has all the muscle.

Speaker 2 He really does. And he's executed it and people are sort of bowing to him, even in Europe where there was the most tension.
So where does it leave Australia?

Speaker 2 Our Prime Minister hasn't met him face to face yet, and this is now becoming, well, awkward and it's kind of dragging on. Is this a big issue? And how does Anthony Albanese handle that?

Speaker 2 You know, getting that meeting and executing the Australian agenda?

Speaker 1 It doesn't matter.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I think pretty soon I think the Australian Prime Minister has to meet him or else it's going to become an issue. I don't think it's personal by Donald Trump.

Speaker 4 I think that his conversations he's had with Anthony Albanese is said himself, lovely guy, there's no hostility there.

Speaker 4 This whole myth that the Liberal Party, Peter Dutton and others tried to create that, oh, having Kevin Rudd there is a liability, that's nonsense.

Speaker 4 Australia's had more access in those early days with Richard Miles and Penny Wong than almost any country within two or three days of Trump being elected.

Speaker 4 And I think that

Speaker 4 Australia,

Speaker 4 but we need to get that the Prime Minister has to meet the President.

Speaker 4 And when he meets him, he needs to be well briefed because every meeting, Donald Trump sort of plays a bit with the people sitting in that other chair.

Speaker 4 You know, he tests them out, he pushes a bit, he prods, he makes jokes to see how they react. Then there's J.D.
Vance standing by there, and he was the one who bared his fangs against Zelensky.

Speaker 4 And then Musk was standing in the background when Cyril Ramaposa was there. Trump, of course, Musk, of course, born in South Africa.

Speaker 4 And so Anthony Albanese has to workshop who could be in the room, who might bait him. And you just don't rise to the occasion.
You've got the bully in the playground.

Speaker 4 You tell him you don't want to be pushed around. But the moment you start to try to punch the bully back, the whole thing takes a different stance.

Speaker 4 Better to try to talk the bully down rather than have a physical confrontation.

Speaker 2 And it has to be literally rehearsed, doesn't it? Even the way you go in for the handshake has become political, right? Like

Speaker 2 the Prime Minister has to sort of game this. I wonder who he's gaming it with.

Speaker 4 That's true. That's true, Patricia.
What you wear. Zelinsky was dead from the moment he arrived, turning up without a suit.
That's the first thing Trump said to him.

Speaker 4 Oh, you dressed up for us, did you?

Speaker 4 And then that journalist inside the room, who's part of the Trump apparatus, first question the journalists asked was that particular journalist saying, don't you own a suit?

Speaker 4 So basically, I'm sure the Australian Prime Minister will wear a nice suit. And I'm not saying you have to be deferential to him.

Speaker 4 You've got to learn the art of being a Trump whisperer. That's what the world is about now.
If you want America to work for you, you have to learn the art of being a Trump whisperer.

Speaker 1 Come in a suit and arrive.

Speaker 4 Come in a suit and arrive bearing R.M.

Speaker 1 Williams, I reckon.

Speaker 4 Maybe Anthony Albanese can bring another invitation from the king. After all, he's our king too, isn't he? Exactly.
Right, John. Boom, boom.

Speaker 2 John, you are always so brilliant to talk to. Thank you for coming on the party room.

Speaker 4 Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, thanks, John. And keep up the good work you and the whole bureau are doing there.
It's relentless, but my God, it is interesting.

Speaker 4 Thank you.

Speaker 4 Thanks so much.

Speaker 4 We'll move to questions without notice. We'll give the call to the Leader of the Opposition.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Order.

Speaker 2 The bells are ringing. That means it's time for question time.
And this week's question comes from Simon.

Speaker 4 Hey, PKN Fran. Just heard PK and David Spears' excellent discussion on Susan Lee's speech at the press club.

Speaker 4 She was quite clear about being agnostic on how to attract women into the party,

Speaker 4 but very clear that she wanted women in the party. What steps would have to happen to allow some of the teals, including Allegra Spender, to stand as a Liberal candidate? Thanks.
Bye.

Speaker 1 In terms of, Simon, your point about, you know, maybe allow some of the teals, including Allegra Spender, to stand as a Liberal candidate, I think the Libs would probably be thrilled if Allegra Spender,

Speaker 1 indicated privately that she wouldn't mind being a Liberal. I think there's a...

Speaker 1 No, I don't think she will, but it's been a point made for a long time now. Malcolm Turnbull's made it very clearly.
Many of these teal female candidates

Speaker 1 in days past would have been Liberal candidates. Allegra Spender is one of them.
Zali Stegl, probably another.

Speaker 1 Rebecca Sharkey, another. I mean, these are people who once reflected the values of the Liberal Party, but the Liberal Party is more

Speaker 1 moderate elements. Now, that moderate

Speaker 1 sector of the Liberal Party has been diminished, almost demolished, you might say, over recent times, and that's why these teals have been independents, not liberals. Is that likely to change?

Speaker 1 Not in the short term, I don't think. It's not impossible that one

Speaker 1 might make a switch, but

Speaker 1 I think there's a long way to go before they would be convinced.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they'd have to make a lot of changes, and they are definitely not there right now. Look, we've got another question.
We've had quite a few written questions about the rules-based order.

Speaker 2 Now, just to give you a quick sort of cheats guide to the rules-based order, it's the post-World War II structure for countries to make kind of planned decisions, consultative decisions through the United Nations around

Speaker 2 war and peace. And, you know, that's a very rough guide, but that's what it is, right? There's rules and you're meant to stick to them.
The question is this from Ash.

Speaker 2 Surely the rules-based order was damaged by China's ignoring of international court rulings around reclamation in the South China Sea and was totally killed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Speaker 2 What is the point of the rules-based order if autocracies ignore it, but Western democracies abide by it?

Speaker 2 It would be extremely foolish for Australia to continue to pretend that there is still any rules-based order that will somehow protect us when clearly none does.

Speaker 2 Donald Trump didn't kill the rules-based order. He is just acting within the world order as it is today.

Speaker 2 Might is right is scary for a small country like Australia, but you can't just wish it isn't so. Australia has to plan for the world we have, not the world we wish for.
Fran?

Speaker 1 Well, it sounds like a...

Speaker 1 question written by Andrew Hastie because I heard your interview with Andrew Hastie this weekend afternoon leafing and his response was and he didn't say this in a smart way he said you know it's nostalgic thinking this is a world governed by might and not right and anyone who talks about this uh rules-based global order is really being nostalgic.

Speaker 4 And this is the world that we're living in.

Speaker 1 And to some extent, that's true. But that doesn't mean that the rules need to be tossed away and can just be ignored without discussion.
We still have structures and institutions.

Speaker 1 The rules-based order has been, as you say, flouted by all these countries.

Speaker 1 Western liberal democracies usually bring it to mind, bring it to the table when they're criticising countries like China or North Korea or Iran or Russia, because yes, they have flouted those rules.

Speaker 1 rules as did George W. Bush flout the rules when you know in the Iraq war after claiming the fear of weapons of mass destruction.
George W. Bush did take it to the UN.

Speaker 1 He took it several times to the UN and there were long and protracted discussions about sanctioned regimes and all of that but in the end he went out.

Speaker 1 without the permission, without the resolution that's needed to satisfy the rules-based order. I spoke to international law expert Ben Saul about this on the Radio National Hour this week.

Speaker 1 He went through what the rules are and made the argument for why it's dangerous for us to just say, well, might is right, that's the way it is, and drop any kind of pretense of having an agreed set of norms.

Speaker 1 And if you think about that, what does that mean? It is just the law of the jungle. As we saw in Iran, it was the guy with the biggest bombs.
Okay, the U.S. bunker busters that stopped that.

Speaker 1 Donald Trump has made

Speaker 1 the reference to it's like Hiroshima when the US dropped the H-bomb.

Speaker 4 I don't want to use an example of Hiroshima I don't want to use an example of Nagasaki but that was essentially the same thing that ended that war this ended that with a war if we didn't take that out they would have that's the mita's right now doctrine but after 1945 we did have this set of rules agreed upon

Speaker 1 is now the time just to throw them to the wind i i don't know i think it's still important to be talking democracies talking about you know how it is we need to behave the set of values we agree upon.

Speaker 1 But it is very difficult.

Speaker 1 As Australia says, we don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm finding it a little troubling hearing the

Speaker 2 kind of language of defeatism from so many political types at the moment on the rules-based order because...

Speaker 1 Exactly what Ben Saul was saying, you know,

Speaker 1 he's got to stay more optimistic.

Speaker 2 Yeah. My daughter's actually studying the rules-based order at the moment and is obsessed with it.
And we talk about it a lot. And

Speaker 2 it's so important it's such an important structure and if it is collapsing and if our leaders are not fighting to keep it and are sort of telling us and you know you're right Andrew Hastie for instance it's just well yeah it was good when it lasted but we've just got to live in the world we're in well do we have to just accept the world as we find it or do we need to

Speaker 1 as leaders insist on the world we want right and as a middle order country you know Australia has played a role in developing some of these treaties you know we were involved in the weapons treaty, the nuclear proliferation treaty, we're involved in gun control.

Speaker 1 You know, we have played a role in building coalitions globally to put rules in place that have had an impact and maintain and you know having an effect.

Speaker 1 So there is work for a country of Australia's standing and size, which is small, let's face it, in a might is right world.

Speaker 1 Australia is not going to do well and just means we have to attach ourselves more fully to a country like the US, I suppose.

Speaker 1 But you know, where there is a role for middle countries like Australia, and I don't think we should give up on that. I agree.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, you know, as soon as you give up on it, then you are essentially saying give up on.

Speaker 4 The law of the jungle. Yeah.

Speaker 2 fairness and human rights, because of course a lot of these rules are there to save people from objectionable governments and leaders who don't have restraint on the way that they behave.

Speaker 2 Keep sending your questions in. We absolutely love poring over your curly questions.

Speaker 1 Yes, we do. Remember to follow the Politics Now podcast, which is the podcast PK puts out every weekday.
That's where you'll find the party room.

Speaker 1 It's on the ABC Listen app, so you never miss an episode.

Speaker 2 And our friend of the show, Mel Clark, will be back in your feed for another edition of Insiders on Background on Saturday. See you, friend.
See you, PK.

Speaker 1 Soaring temperatures, a lack of water, and sand dunes every 500 meters. It's one of the most inhospitable places on Earth.

Speaker 1 It's August 1999, and something strange is happening in the Australian Outback.

Speaker 4 When I got there, it was just organized chaos.

Speaker 1 It's one of the most extensive searches ever mounted in the Great Sandy Desert.

Speaker 1 A well-to-do young American has dumped his belongings and walked out into the Great Sandy Desert.

Speaker 4 A white guy from America, what hope has he got?

Speaker 4 They'll be looking for a body.

Speaker 1 He sent a postcard to his parents in America just saying, I'm heading into the desert.

Speaker 1 Goodbye. Triggering a media sensation and one of the biggest searches Australia had ever seen.

Speaker 4 Once the Americans arrived, it became a lot more bizarre. We really need to be what we call sempra gumby, always flexible.
He insisted that people use his radio handle, gunslinger.

Speaker 4 Are you taking the piss?

Speaker 1 But there's one problem that no one's got an answer for. How do you search for someone who doesn't want to be found? I felt it was his choice to choose not to come out of the desert.

Speaker 1 I knew he couldn't be content with living a life unless he did this.

Speaker 1 My name is Erin Park and I've been obsessed with this story for years.

Speaker 1 And I'm not the only one. Why would a fit, intelligent young man with everything to live for plunge into one of the deadliest landscapes in Australia on purpose?

Speaker 4 It's very easy to dismiss it as crazy, but I think when you dive deeper into it, you see that it's not crazy.

Speaker 1 It's a story spanning three decades, two continents and some strange encounters.

Speaker 1 I really don't know how I started off in the desert in Northern Australia looking into this and now I'm in bloody Alaska looking for a porcupine.

Speaker 1 Every little thread was even more glittery and sparkly and fascinating and quick. And it polarised opinions the world over.
Were his actions selfish or inspired?

Speaker 4 The backlash was pretty fierce.

Speaker 1 And it turns out this desert where Robert Baguki went missing is keeping other secrets. What Robert Berguki did here is just the tip of the iceberg.

Speaker 4 We've got a lot of people missing. It remains a mystery, you know?

Speaker 1 At a time when so many of us feel lost, what's the most extreme thing you do to feel found? The idea of being out here alone scares the hell out of me. I ain't no Robert Baguki, that's for sure.

Speaker 4 And at what cost?

Speaker 4 Death will come, and I'll be ready for it.

Speaker 1 This is season five of Expanse, Nowhere Man. Find it on the ABC Listen app and all the usual places.