Shame about the “pile-on”:Donald Trump with Scott Morrison at the former president’s penthouse apartment in Trump Tower.
The golden doors of the penthouse apartment in Trump Tower that formed the backdrop for their photograph together could easily be mistaken for the Ark of the Covenant. A swath of recent polls point to the Second Coming of “The Donald”. Morrison even gave voice to the gospel according to Trump. “It was nice to catch up again,” he noted afterwards on X,“especially given the pile-on he is currently dealing with in the US.”
“Pile-on” was a reference presumably to the four separate criminal prosecutions being mounted against the former president,which include charges relating to his attempt on January 6,2021,to violently overturn the outcome of the 2020 election.
Forgiveness has always been an article of Christian faith. But judging from the tenor of Morrison’s remarks,he does not appear to think that Trump has done anything wrong. Later,in an interview with the ABC,the book of Morrison again appeared to mimic the book of Trump:that the former president is the victim of a Democratic witch-hunt.
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“Politics is played pretty brutally here as it is back in Australia,” Morrison said. “And you know,when you see that being played out in institutions like the courts,that concerns me.”
To others I will leave the task of deconstructing in detail Trump’s thoughts on AUKUS. According to Morrison,the nuclear submarine deal he negotiated with the Biden administration evidently received a “warm reception” from the former president.
But who knows whether Trump’s response can be taken at face value. During his first term in the White House,on matters peripheral to his thinking,Trump had a habit of being swayed by the last person he spoke to. More significantly,he tended to regard any pact he had not personally negotiated as being,by definition,a lousy deal – although,given the exorbitant sums that Australia is willing to stump up for America’s nuclear technology,that is harder to argue with AUKUS.