Malcolm Turnbull Trump: US weighs in on former PM’s comments

Mr Turnbull, who served as PM during a part of Mr Trump’s first term as US president, shared his candid observations of the world leaders on ABC’s Q+A program on Monday.

“When you see Trump with Putin, as I have on a few occasions, he’s like the 12-year-old boy who goes to high school and meets the captain of the football team. My hero!” Mr Turnbull said on the program.

“It is really creepy … the creepiness was palpable,” he added.

The clip was picked up by US talk show The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, where Colbert joked Mr Turnbull’s comment about Trump was an “insulting comparison … to 12-year-old boys”.

“If a 12-year-old boy met Putin, he wouldn’t idolise him, he would look him straight in the eye and say ‘wait, we’re the same height?’”

Addressing the comments on MSNBC, TV presenter Nicolle Wallace said Mr Turnbull had given voice to an “acute anxiety shared by many senior leaders and senior government officials all around the world”.

Mr Turnbull then appeared on the program himself, where he reiterated Mr Trump’s fascination with Mr Putin “is a creepy one”.

“It was palpable. People who have been with Trump and Putin … will say the same thing. He has a fascination with Putin, he’s in awe of Putin, probably admires him, probably wishes he could be as omnipotent in America as Putin is in Russia,” he said.

“It’s very disconcerting when you see the leader of the free world being so interested in tyrants.”

CNN anchor Jim Sciutto also re-shared the clip, adding: “Several of Trump’s own former advisors have also publicly commented on his admiration for Putin. And Trump himself has expressed such admiration repeatedly in interviews and speeches.”

His post sparked fierce debate from Americans on both sides of the political spectrum.

“And they are all laughing at us. Because Trump makes us all look like clowns. Just one big circus,” wrote one.

“He’s a complete laughing stock around the world,” added another.

Others were critical of the decision to air a former Australian leader’s stance on Trump.

“Who cares what the Prime Minister of Australia thinks,” wrote one.

“Malcolm Turnbull goes on CNN and MSNBC because Australian’s don’t take any notice of him. His own party threw him out of office,” added a second.

Mr Trump has previously spoken about his relationship with Mr Putin, sharing he gets “along with” the Russian president.

“Let me tell you, I got along with him really well. And that’s a good thing, not a bad thing,” he said in September.

However, he added that “nobody was tougher on Russia than me”.

Earlier this month, Mr Trump said he’d “encourage” Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” with NATO countries who, in his view, spent too little on defence.

During Mr Turnbull’s appearance on Q+A, the outspoken former prime minister said Mr Trump — whom he has repeatedly criticised over the years — was a “bully” and said he was no longer committed to democracy “as we know it”.

“Donald Trump does not believe the law applies to him,” Mr Turnbull said.

“Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and refused to accept it and … encouraged a mob to try to overthrow the constitutional process in the Congress, tried to overthrow his own constitution.”

He also addressed Israel’s war in Gaza, saying the Hamas attack on October 7 “changed” Israel and “shocked” the world.

“It was designed as a provocation,” he said.

Asked whether Israel should not have taken the provocation and if it had been an overreach, Mr Turnbull became somewhat critical of Israel.

“The question you have to ask is firstly, is the price in Palestinian civilian lives now so high that the claim that the Israeli Defence Forces make that they’re doing everything they can to protect human life no longer credible,” he said.

“Their question has to be are they losing so much public support in the world today that they are in effect achieving what Hamas wanted to achieve.”

Asked if that was his view, he replied: “I fear that Hamas would see what has happened as being entirely in accordance with their provocation.”