A senior Liberal senator has broken ranks with the rest of his party by calling for Kevin Rudd to be recalled as Australia’s Ambassador to the United States after a cryptic tweet from one of Donald Trump’s closest confidants suggested he was on thin ice in Washington.
But Rudd has received the unlikely backing of fellow former prime minister Tony Abbott, who said the US administration shouldn’t be prescribing who can or can’t be an Australian ambassador.
Speculation over the diplomatic posting ramped up after Daniel Scavino Jr, a senior Trump adviser and former deputy White House chief of staff, latched onto Rudd’s statement that he was deleting old social media posts critical of Trump in the wake of last week’s election result, reposting the statement on X with a GIF of an hourglass last night.
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Scavino has pinned the post, an apparent message to Rudd that his time is running out, to the top of his X profile.
Since then, senior Liberal Senator Dean Smith has called for Rudd to be recalled, breaking ranks with the rest of the federal opposition which had stopped short of calling for the move.
“I don’t think that Kevin Rudd is operating from a position of strength at the moment,” Smith told radio station 6PR this afternoon.
“If I was the foreign minister, I’d probably ask him to pack his bags… I just don’t think he’s up to the job anymore.”
A short time earlier, Liberal shadow minister for foreign affairs Simon Birmingham said he and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton “have wanted to see Kevin Rudd succeed all along”.
“Ambassador Rudd and the prime minister are the ones who are in the box seat to best make the assessment in coming weeks or months about how effectively he is going to be able to continue to have the influence and get the outcomes that Australia needs,” he said.
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https://x.com/DanScavino/status/1856245824675545479
Rudd, who was appointed as US ambassador by Anthony Albanese in March 2023, had previously called Trump “the most destructive president in history” and a “traitor to the West”.
He said last week that he was deleting those posts to “eliminate the possibility of such comments being misconstrued as reflecting his positions as ambassador and, by extension, the views of the Australian government”.
READ MORE: Kevin Rudd not-so-quietly deletes critical social media posts about Trump
Albanese and the rest of his government have repeatedly backed Rudd as ambassador following Trump’s election win, and he has also received support from some unlikely corners of Australian politics, including former Liberal prime ministers Scott Morrison and, yesterday, Tony Abbott.
Abbott, who replaced Rudd as PM following the 2013 election, released a new episode of his podcast shortly before Scavino’s X post, saying the United States should steer clear of dictating who Australia can appoint to diplomatic postings.
“It would be unusual for our closest ally to start being prescriptive about who can and can’t be our ambassador,” Abbott said.
“Sure, Rudd has said some injudicious things about the incoming president, but a lot of people have, including a lot of people on my side of politics here in Australia…
“Whatever you think of Kevin Rudd, you couldn’t say that the guy is not hyperactive. I am confident that Kevin has been hyperactive on our behalf as he sees it in Washington.
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“So I would be surprised if there is any pressure from the Americans to change our ambassador.
“I have no reason to think that Kevin is not doing a good job at present. He will do whatever he humanly can to win over senior people in the incoming administration.
“And he’s already done everything he humanly can to row back his previous ill-advised remarks about the incoming president.”
Trump was asked about Rudd’s previous criticism of him by conservative UK politician Nigel Farage in March.
“I don’t know much about him,” Trump replied.
“I heard he was a little bit nasty. I hear he’s not the brightest bulb. But I don’t know much about him.
“But if he’s at all hostile, he will not be there long.”
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