Albanese heads home with a Trump card

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The Prime Minister is as you know Anthony Albanese and he's highly respected.

Done very well in his election and I hear you're very popular today, right?

It varies from day to day

with all of us.

But he's done a fantastic job as the Prime Minister.

We're here to talk about trade.

After what felt like the longest wait, Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump have officially met.

And it seems the high-stakes White House meeting has delivered in spades for Anthony Albanese.

Donald Trump heaped praise on the Australian Prime Minister, seemed to be pretty aware of his popularity in our country, inked a critical minerals deal and said AUKUS was continuing full steam ahead.

But it was a guy called Kevin, you know, from Queensland here to help, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that was in the hot seat.

Welcome to Politics Now.

Hi, I'm Patricia Carvellis.

And on White House Meeting Day, I'm Raph Epstein from ABC Radio in Melbourne.

White House Meeting Day.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

We've been waiting for this moment like the dags we are.

Seriously.

Well, the media's been.

Did you get up at 2am for this, Raph?

Or did you catch up early and later?

I caught up on Ivy.

Yeah.

I caught up on Ivy.

Same.

Caught up.

Sleeping is important, but I got all over it and I'm so all over it.

Watched every moment.

Let's start with the most important point.

Tone is everything with Trump.

Optics, vibes, how we feel around him.

Not us, the voting public, but leaders.

How do you think that went?

Well.

This meeting doesn't have its own Wikipedia entry.

So the Ukraine meeting and the South African meeting in the White House, they've got their own Wikipedia entry because they went so bad.

So number one, it didn't go badly.

Number two, the media were salivating.

Like they were just waiting to see if Trump's going to tear strips off elbow.

So that didn't happen.

So even like if you tick those two boxes, that's good.

Then on top of it, I don't know what you have heard from people in the government, but they are, they are literally.

popping the champagne corks.

Trump is not yet.

Trump's not popular, but they are so chummy.

And to have a positive meeting, we'll talk about the reality, the outcomes later but to have a positive meeting and to have this much positive reinforcement and this many issues with boxes ticked um I just think the substance is less important in some ways the tone was superb the Prime Minister could not have hoped for anything better do you think he's happy he's extremely happy

the the one kind of moment that clearly has got quite a bit of attention because it was a bit of drama and look you know our profession we love a bit of drama was was the Kevin Rudd Exchange.

So it's important we just go to that.

That's the only derail potential of that meeting.

And I reckon they're not sweating it over this.

Just backstory, you know, he was our Prime Minister.

You might remember Kevin 07.

He became many years later because our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, appointed him ambassador to the United States.

Clearly a very accomplished person.

No one works harder than him.

Everyone agrees with that.

Rudd's had the Oval Office meeting with Obama, right?

So he's got experience at these meetings as well.

Yeah, and he understands the US.

He understands China, which is a currency that he uses in the US.

However,

he became a problem in this meeting.

Now, it was all done,

I think it was Penny Wong who described it in a morning.

interview.

Clearly, these words that people use are not mistakes as a sort of tongue-in-cheek, kind of playful way that it sort of went off the rails, but it wasn't convenient.

What actually happened, though, that you think was of substance between Kevin Rudd and the President of the United States?

Firstly, if you haven't seen it, I do think it's important to talk about...

So it is, on the one hand, it's genuinely awkward, right?

Rudd has his back to the journos.

Both the Prime Minister and the President are looking at the journos.

All the journos are crowded in.

One of the journos asks a triple barrel question, including a reference to Rudd.

And then Trump not only doesn't know or says he doesn't know who Rudd is, Rudd is sitting in front of him and has clearly been, is one of the reasons this meeting is happening.

Then when Albo points, oh yeah, he's over there, Trump says, I don't like you and I don't think I ever will.

So that sounds bad and looks awkward.

To be honest, when I watched it, this is just an episode of The Apprentice.

Yes, that's why.

This looks exactly like that.

The worst things about Donald Trump is that it only matters what he thinks and the whole world is a TV show.

So that has serious implications for the way the world is run and the way the United States is run.

But in terms of what Australia wanted out of that meeting, they got off lightly.

Ritual humiliation at which everybody laughs and pretends to be entertained by Donald Trump.

That's on the Trump bingo card.

If that goes well and with jollity, that's a great thing.

If it goes really badly like it did with Zelensky, you've really hit the low mark.

So I think the ritual humiliation is like, that is just the A to Z.

I agree with you, Raph.

And in fact, in many ways, Kevin Rudd,

being the lowest hanging fruit, took one for the team.

Like, in all seriousness, he took one for Team Australia.

Do you think he'll remind the Prime Minister of that?

I'm sure he will.

Also, let's think about the way this meeting was talked about, right?

People in the media, people in the coalition, not going to take us seriously because we don't spend enough on defence.

They're not going to give us the subs because we've neglected the relationship.

Australia is going to get a worse tariff deal than other countries because we've neglected the relationship.

That's just all disappeared.

Like that is just vapor and smoke.

If the worst of it is, Kevin Rudd has to have an embarrassed smile.

And then at the end, what happens at the end when the cameras aren't there?

Kevin Rudd gets on the knee.

Okay, I'm exaggerating, but seriously,

he didn't, literally, obviously, but he emotionally got down on his knees and apologised.

And Donald Trump says, all is forgiven.

So this, I mean, this is the lowest cost meeting possible.

They have kissed and made up.

There has been a reconciliation.

It is a romantic comedy and they've ended up back together.

Look, it is everything that wrong, right?

This is a guy.

You worry that as soon as the shiny thing is no longer in front of his eye, grabbing his attention, his attention is going to shift away.

So see Middle East peace process, whether or not it is a ceasefire or a peace process.

But again, in the context of this meeting, I mean, that's the reason they're telling you they're popping champagne corks, right?

Yeah.

So I'm getting the same read.

Now, just to be be clear about the way governments work, of course, they want to spin it positively.

So we, we, you know, just in case you think we're thick, we're aware of that.

I reckon you can always tell.

I don't think you're thick.

I do, however, and I'll give you some examples before we get into some of the detail, which is important.

Give you one of them.

Defence spending, my Mates, right?

The spending bit.

Now, AUKUS.

They were pretty sure even yesterday was my read, that they were going to get positive words about AUKUS.

Even Malcolm Turnbull, the former prime minister who hates AUKUS, said to me on an afternoon briefing, yeah, he's going to say nice things about AUKUS because it's such a dud deal for Australia and blah, blah, blah.

Look, we got that.

AUKUS absolutely signed, sealed, delivered, so to speak.

Okay.

Well, it's not signed, sealed, delivered, but for a president who's barely mentioned AUKUS, the fact that he says positive things and the fact he says the subs are coming, box ticked.

Whether or not that's reality, different.

Exactly.

And it's so far, far into the future, RAF, that of course we can't test reality for a long time because we're like, you and I are going to be in a retirement home, right?

Like, so I don't know.

Hey, kids, can you come and tell us if it's worked out?

Like, cause I'm going to be.

As I spoon the gruel.

Have they delivered the submarine?

Sorry.

As they help me with my replacement teeth and stuff.

So,

okay.

AUKUS, I'm not surprised, although it is a win.

However, the defense spending stuff,

Holly Dolly, I spoke to a government minister before making some calls and he said, we did not expect that.

I can tell you.

So we should spell out what happened.

So keep in mind, and how many times, by the way, has this been,

how many column inches have been expended?

How many hours of TV and radio have you heard someone criticizing the government saying, look, America wants Australia's spending to go from 2% of GDP to 3.5% of GDP.

If we don't do that,

there's going to be a cost with subs or trade or tariffs.

What does Donald Trump say when he's asked about that?

Don't worry about it.

You can only do so much.

I think they have been great.

I think the Australians have been great.

You can only do so much was the line for me.

I thought, are you seriously saying that?

Right.

Like that, so that is actually, that is definitively a diplomatic win because a lot of Trump's demands of other countries and their defense spending, it's really easy to fudge that spending.

There's lots of debates about what that really means.

Just to have Trump saying, I think they've been great.

In some ways, that has more substance than the AUKUS comment because that is about relations right now.

Have you ticked the box so that Donald Trump will say you're nice in public?

Again, do you want to be Zelenskied or Maloney'd?

Maloney being the Italian Prime Minister.

You want to be in the Maloney camp, and this is 100% Albanese, coincidentally with the Italian name.

I was about to link the Italian gag.

You took my line from me.

I thought, yeah, there must be something about Italy, great place.

Look, I think that's all correct.

I want to just segue, if we can, to what else we got out of it.

Critical minerals.

Critical minerals.

Did you know, Patricia?

Did I know?

Probably not.

The Donald project was approved in Victoria, in Western Victoria, in June.

It is the fourth largest critical minerals mine in the world outside of China.

So this stuff matters a lot on the ground in Australia.

They signed a deal, and of course it got signed with the ridiculously thick texture, the Sharpie that Donald Trump loves.

There's already progress on this stuff in Australia.

The Australian government's already actually directly bought into Australian mining companies.

What I found interesting, though, this quote-unquote deal, and this is where we shift from the apprentice TV show, the

style to the substance, the PM's own office says this about the framework.

So this is from the PM's office.

The framework sets out a policy and programmatic action plan, but this is a quote, and the New York Times was quoting this, does not constitute or create any legally binding or enforceable obligations express or implied.

And I don't think that's important simply because it's a detail and pouring money into critical minerals is important.

What do we actually get on the ground in Australia as a result of the deal?

So away from the pomp and the circumstance, we actually had the Farmers Federation of Victoria on the radio saying the federal government cares more about what is under the ground than the people on top of the ground.

So yes, critical minerals, really important.

I was kind of stunned to actually learn that it's 415 kilograms of critical minerals needed in every F-35 strike fighter.

So it's like 400 kilos of this stuff in every one of those incredibly expensive planes.

But what does it mean for the constituents that the PM wants to attract and keep at the next election?

Mining's difficult.

The farmers don't, in rural parts of Australia, already don't have the easiest of relationships with the Albanese government.

It's jobs, isn't it?

It is jobs.

But the other thing about rare earths and all these critical elements, you need a ton of energy.

to extract the stuff.

And there's also a lot of toxic stuff that comes out when you're extracting the good stuff.

So there's real implications there on the ground, political realities.

Really good point you make.

And of course, you know, if we look at the sort of parallel other things that are happening at a domestic level, we've got like environmental laws that are up all the time.

I think this goes to the heart of the new environment.

I agree with you because it's about approvals.

We're kind of creating stronger federal laws, trying to cut the states out more, the one-stop kind of version.

Of course, that makes, that's a real, that's a real tension, isn't it, with states like Victoria.

It's a massive difficulty.

You can dig the stuff out of the ground and earn money and have a few jobs, or you can do, as the PM said he wants to do, you can dig the stuff out of the ground, try to process it here.

Now, there's no Australian companies processing it here.

I think there's one Australian company processing at the moment in both Malaysia and in the United States.

Once you process it, some of this stuff's really poisonous.

There's a reason China's been doing this for decades.

Their environmental protections...

are much weaker than ours.

And also they are a one-state country with

the rights to

and here people have strong rights

and are not afraid to kick out governments when they're annoyed.

So that's a real political dilemma, right?

How many times I have lots of people calling and texting saying, why are we just digging this stuff out of the ground and selling it?

Why don't we process it?

Okay, let's process it.

Where's the energy going to come from?

And who's going to put up with...

Oh, Raph, you and your details.

This stuff is not simple.

The money, though.

So we're talking, though, this deal.

It's billion.

It's

$8.5 billion pipeline of priority critical mineral projects in

that, right?

Supposedly, because that's your point of view.

Not legally binding.

Not legally binding.

So how did they arrive at that figure then?

It's like vibes.

So it's a good thing.

I only learned this this week.

So I think it's the Chinese leadership in the early 90s and they say, right, the Middle East's got oil.

What oil is to the Middle East, critical minerals will be to us.

So they have been working on this for decades.

As I mentioned before, the environmental or the lack of environmental protections has let China become dominant in this.

And even if not all of it is dug up in China, almost all of it is processed in China.

So it's a good thing.

I think most people accept it's a good thing if we don't have to rely as much on China.

But trying to get legally binding agreements about who's going to spend what and where might actually be a bridge too far.

So this stuff is crucial.

It's central, but it's not simple.

No.

And in terms of back to the politics of today, politics now it's in the label for the Prime Minister to be able to, you know as as they did elaborately sign these deals you know to the cameras with donald trump's enormous um sharpie sharpie and you know the whole rhythm comes out and all the sharpie sharpie thank you just on on the politics the politics are great for albanese sorry but

mr popularity with with trump like hey he is so popular hey like i will say one thing though the optics were good i agree that they were good i'm going to say something that I don't know if anyone else has said and will probably get me cancelled.

Are you ready?

Sure.

I was there when PK was cancelled.

Yeah, let's see if I get cancelled.

I don't know by who.

Trump did seem also completely bored.

I did not see boredom.

No, I didn't see boredom.

He was bored.

Was he bored?

Oh, gosh.

That had not occurred to me.

What I actually thought was...

He was bored.

This is Mr.

Nice Guy, Trump.

Why is is he being so nice why wouldn't he be nice to us obviously we're just shoveling money in critical minutes i think one of the

bored yeah he looked bored to me not so bored that he was not not present so i'm not going that far well he's not fighting he's only ever really interested when he's that's all i'm saying yeah yeah that's all i'm saying and i'm not suggesting you know that that there was anything deeper to it

just that this was very transactional for him is his health tick the box this is just australia they're not a problem they seem to to be giving us a lot of...

In fact, he said, a lot of our allies we have problems with, not you guys.

Of course they don't.

And what that showed to me is that the media circus around the problems was sometimes so overegged.

Sometimes?

Always.

Not always.

But I mean, so just to get again to the politics of it, how sensible and middle of the road does Anthony Albanese look?

Most Australians don't like Trump, but he's treated him with respect.

He's been greeted warmly and he's come away with an assurance that we'll get the submarines and we'll do something good on critical minerals whether or not that stands up to scrutiny the coalition are still saying somehow Kevin Rudd shouldn't be the ambassador after Kevin Rudd's groundwork lays the conditions for this fantastic meeting and then you've got the Greens I'm pretty sure I saw Nick McKim the Greens senator on channel nine this morning sort of prosecuting the greens talking points I mean, this is just those two parties vacating the field.

I'm sorry, but they are vacating the field.

On the coalition jumping on the Kevin Rudd stuff, I got to get it.

I mean, it's the low-hanging fruit, right?

And saying he should be recalled or he's not an effective ambassador.

Look.

How much more effective do you want someone to be?

Okay, but he was the moment.

Come on, Raph.

He was the moment that there was a problem in the meeting.

It was a little problem.

Well, it was a little problem.

No, Raph, it was a little problem.

You can't say it was nothing.

I agree.

It was almost nothing ritual humiliation.

You need a little bit of ritual humiliation to be a backstory.

I still think he took one for the team.

I just said that.

Like, I really believe that.

But I just want to say that broadly for Australia, our independence, the point that Malcolm Turnbull, I thought very, very well put in a very, you know, strong way, that we shouldn't be sucking up.

I don't think you recall your ambassador, right?

I think that's humiliating for an independent country of our size to do that.

So on that premise.

I think it would be the wrong thing to do.

Clearly, if Kevin Rudd now actively in his current role said new things that were causing disruption, that's a different story.

But now after, you know, bending the knee and saying sorry and everyone moving on, I think it would be ridiculous to recall him.

Coalition's gotta, gotta, have to, must get some extra credibility with voters.

They can't only be talking to an ever smaller, ever diminishing group of voters.

That's the problem with the Kevin Rudd.

I want to go to one other thing that I kind of got right yesterday.

Thank the Lord above.

She's back from holidays and she's on point.

I'm trying to be.

I've tried to talk to a lot of people just so I, you know,

get on top of things, Rath.

No exemption on tariffs.

Now, I said yesterday that I did not think this was coming.

It would have been nice if it came.

It didn't come.

It's not coming for anyone, is it?

Exactly.

But remember, it shows again, I think Labor's done a good job of managing the optics around the management of this for at least six weeks now.

And I think it was first Don Farrell.

I had him on afternoon briefing and I noticed the tone shift.

They really changed expectations around tariffs.

Don't forget, they had been talking the big game about getting a good deal.

Then they stopped and dropped that and talked about what a great deal we got.

So they changed that.

We didn't get an exemption.

The opposition's criticising it.

But no one seems to be making the biggest deal about it.

Well, I think it's, again, if they actually weren't all eyeing off each other and worrying about Barnaby Joyce and worrying about Andrew Hastie, they might be able to come up with some good lines on the tariffs.

They might be able to come up with any sort of decent attack.

The other thing to really point out, maybe the coalition could form a good line around whether or not we're actually getting the submarine.

So the guy who's in the room from the U.S.

Navy, who is there to sort of basically tick off and say that Donald Trump is right about the submarine.

So it's the United States Navy Secretary, John Phelan.

He's the same guy who's been pointing to all of the problems.

The one simple way to think about it, our billions of dollars go to the American shipyards.

So this is where the coalition could do a bit of homework, right?

Phelan has said they need another 250,000 skilled workers in those shipyards just to meet their own needs.

Now, it is a nation of more than 350 million people, but an extra 250,000 workers just to make the submarines that are needed for America, let alone to make enough submarines so that Australia can have them.

They've pushed back the delivery of their next generation nuclear subs.

They weigh twice as much.

They carry nuclear missiles, the Columbia class.

There's room there to say we're not doing enough.

There's room there to say, for the coalition, that is, to say maybe we need to do a little bit more in the West of Australia, but you just don't hear it.

And I think that is why it's a problem to keep on focusing on, Kevin.

But it does get...

calls so it like you know we were able to have a chat about that on talk pack it's easy to understand but the trick in opposition is to work out what the policy difference can be and then to turn it into something deliverable and understandable.

And they're failing.

Yeah, they are absolutely failing.

I mean, we're recording this on a Tuesday after the significant meeting.

Barnaby Joyce has already had a press conference where he talked in circles about himself.

That's the current state of the opposition.

Talking in circles about himself is a good description.

Well, that's what he did.

I was like, are we going to get a yarn out of this?

Oh, no, he's talking just in circles about himself again.

There is no kind of strong narrative coming out of that opposition.

No, there isn't.

There is just trouble, trouble, trouble, and it looks messy.

And the public's like, not interested.

They are not interested.

They are switched off.

This is doing nothing for their cause.

But that's another podcast.

Final thoughts.

Look, I'll start with myself.

I'm on fire today.

What's happened to me?

Five days.

Five pounds.

I am quiet.

There is no burnout going on today, let me tell you.

Look, I just think that for Albanese, not only was it a successful meeting, it really answers the critique of people, largely in the media but beyond, who have been piling pressure on him in relation to this.

The meeting did take a long time to achieve, but actually

Australia's positioning before it, which was to lower expectations, do the diligent kind of work, they've deployed Pat Conroy, Richard.

We're the process guys.

We're the process government.

And that has worked.

It's actually delivered as a strategy, de-escalate the excitement about it and just kind of get the meat and potatoes done.

Also for Albanese, if you think about his current problems and woes, which I think are very few and far between,

I do think the sort of Trump-America relationship question marks was probably a big part.

Like it was not shifting the public mood, but it was an issue.

He's now put that to bed.

He's had the meeting.

No one's going to dog him with that.

There's no expectation he does another one really soon maybe another phone call will be scheduled everything goes back to normal he could just get back to richard miles speaking lots to heg seth and and like we just get on with programming don't you think i agree with everything you say but no no no there's no but at all but maybe to put it another way for everybody in the country who's less interested in politics than the people listening now maybe another way to think about the outcome Just look at Penny Wong's face on TV in her interviews this morning.

She is not the most emotive of people.

She just looked...

You can almost read her though.

Oh yeah.

She just looked calm and happy.

And I think the number one takeaway, and I could hear this from Labor people today, Labor is the party that gets shit done.

Or Labor is the party that gets stuff done.

And if that is the only thing people take away, okay, whatever you think of Donald Trump, they had the meeting.

They got the reassurances.

We're the party that gets stuff done.

The others are the parties of protest or the parties that talk about personality.

We are the party that gets stuff done.

Although I have a final, final observation.

Final, final.

You did not send me a postcard from your overseas holiday.

And you promised that you would.

I'm just pointing that out.

Which is why I can never

run for politics because delivery would be so bad.

Raph, you're right.

Can I say, I will tell you this adorable anecdote.

So when we were in Salzburg doing the,

as it sounds like Wanka, when I was in Salzburg with my beautiful children who love Maria and the sound of music and hate Nazis.

Home of Mozart, Salzburg?

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you.

And Mozart is everywhere.

Like, that's a big vibe.

When we went to the church that Maria was married in, there were lots of postcards and my partner bought up big.

Yeah, she's that type of character.

She's like, I'm buying up big.

And so she, and, and then I said, wait, can you save me one?

And I have to send one to work.

I didn't mention your name, right?

Cause I knew she likes you and then she'd make it happen.

So she's, and then I just forgot.

I wasn't going to send you one from Greece because I'm like drinking cocktails on the beach, dude.

Like, I'm not interested.

But in Salzburg, a bit colder, you know, time to write a postcard.

Does that mean there's a cute little Mozart postcard or church postcard somewhere?

It's the sound of music.

It's the sound of music church.

Yeah.

Is it sitting at home somewhere?

It is.

I'll accept hand delivery.

In some ways, that's bad.

I never even wrote it.

So, what postcard would Albo write home to Toto?

Dear Toto, DJT was great.

I saw lots of your friends here.

Home soon.

Job done.

Tick tick.

Love Albo?

Kind of.

Now, I bet he mentioned that dog.

I reckon we'll get a readout on that later.

Albo doesn't like dogs, doesn't have a dog.

Oh, I don't know.

It's one of his things.

Never laughs on camera and doesn't have a dog.

You've actually told me this before because you think it says a lot about one's character.

Maybe.

Yeah.

That's it for politics now for today.

Thank you so much for joining me, Raph.

PK, always a pleasure.

And And I'll be joined by David Spears for more on this busy week of politics.

And if you have a question for us, send it to the partyroom at abc.net.au.

Mel and I will be co-hosting on Thursday, and we're looking forward to it.

See ya.

Bye.