Malcolm Turnbull: Trump is not a conservative

Description

Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister of Australia from 2015-2018, doesn’t hold back in this wide-ranging interview with Freddie Sayers.

We cover everything from the Black Lives Matter protests to rising China and the absence of conservatism in much Right-wing thought. Singling out Donald Trump as someone who is “clearly not a conservative”, the two-time Liberal Party leader explains what he learned about the president from his time in office. Some key quotes:

On statues

• “I’m not a fan of tearing down statues… you can tear down a statue, but you can’t tear down the history”.

On Black Lives Matter

• Supports the movement but hasn’t “had the opportunity” to take the knee.

On China

• “China has changed its approach in recent years to bullying and bellicose rhetoric”.
• “Wolf warrior diplomacy is counter-productive”.
• “Trump is using China as a way to deflect from his failures with Covid”.
• Says US-China relations risk “falling into the Thucydides Trap”.
• No need for relations to “become any more intense”.

On 5G

• “I’m not saying that Huawei is spying for China, but if they’re required to, they will have to”.
• “Surprised” by the British government’s decision to grant Huawei access to key infrastructure.
• “Most people in the Five Eyes Intelligence World would say that Australia has taken a more prudent approach”.

On Dominic Cummings

• “Going to Barnard Castle to check your eyesight seems like a pretty wild thing to do”.
• “It’s important that the Prime Minister is not seen as being under the dominion of another”.

On conservatism

• Boris could “place Brexit within the tradition of practical, patriotic British conservatism”.
• But “most people who claim to be conservatives nowadays wouldn’t know the difference between Edmund Burke and Tony Burke” [Labour politician in Australia].
• “Many conservatives are the absolute antithesis of conservatives”.
• Instead there is “a lot of Right-wing, nativist populism flying around, which doesn’t respect institutions”.

On Trump

• Trump is “clearly not a conservative”.
• The most “idiosyncratic president in history”.
• Describing him as a “bully” is like saying “the Pope’s a Catholic”.
• Expected Trump to be “changed by the office”, but this was “confounded”.
• Found him “practical, pragmatic and business-like” in personal dealings.

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