In the wake of the January 6th Capitol riots and his subsequent behavior since leaving the White House, Donald Trump has had to sit by and watch as many of his prominent supporters and allies have turned their back on him and his antics, now that he no longer enjoys the power of the presidency.
Don’t get me wrong, he still has a rather large base of rabid average Joes in his corner. But when it comes to truly notable names, the list has gotten small and getting smaller by the day — even some of his most sycophantic Congresspeople have begun to jump ship.
Joining the ranks of notable names who no longer want to ride on the Trump train is none other than former Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott.
Abbott has had what many would describe as an on-again-off-again relationship with the former United States president over the years. However, in speaking with The Age for an interview Abbott revealed that the current state of his relationship with Donald Trump is definitely off again, and will likely stay that way this time, thanks to the way the former president has publicly conducted himself in the wake of his election loss.
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The report notes that once upon a time Abbott felt that the former New York real estate “mogul” and reality tv wash-up was disgustingly unprepared and “uniquely under-qualified” for the gig of the leader of the free world amid the 2016 election.
Later on, the former Australian Prime Minister had a change of heart, feeling as though Trump had made good on his promises to America. It was as recently as early 2020 that Abbott addressed the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. and bragged on Trump to the audience, claiming that the has-been real estate mogul had exceeded his expectations in the presidency.
“Much to the surprise of many indeed, somewhat to my own surprise… I think he’s been quite a success: his style sometimes grates, but he’s been a very good president,” he stated at the time.
But his approval of Donald Trump didn’t last.
In his most recent interview, Abbott — who served as Australia’s Prime Minister from 2013 to 2015 and as a member of parliament until 2019 — held nothing back when expressing his disgust and disdain for America’s former president after Trump repeatedly and wrongfully claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from him and then literally incited a violent insurrection at the nation’s Capitol in a desperate effort to stop the certification of his loss.
“He has not behaved well since the election… I suppose he was always going to be a sore loser [and] you don’t have to like losing, but you have got to respect the people’s verdict,” Abbott said in the interview. “And for all the things that might have looked a bit fishy on the [election] night, no court anywhere in the United States was convinced that there was anything fundamentally wrong.”
Later on in the interview, Abbott did ultimately soften his tone regarding Trump, saying that history will likely judge the former president more favorably as time passes.
“While he might have been a sore loser, he was in many respects quite a good president, he… had great political integrity,” Abbott added. “I suspect that history will be kinder to him than his contemporaries are being right now.”
You can read more here.
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
