Scott Morrison has opened up about the main difference between current US President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump.
Morrison, who was Australia’s prime minister from 2018 to 2022, was speaking to former Olympic diver Sam Fricker in his deep diving podcast.
‘They are very different people. Incredibly. Joe is what you would call an institutional veteran. “Joe is a Washington politician,” he said.
‘Donald was the complete opposite of that. “Donald was a disruptor.”
The former prime minister expanded on the differences between the current and former US president, saying Biden “has been around a long time” and “knows the system.”
Scott Morrison (left) opened up about the main difference between current US President Joe Biden (right) and former President Donald Trump.
Scott Morrison appears in the photo with former US President Donald Trump, whom he described as a “disruptor”
“He knows how it works, he understands the importance of institutions, what they call relations at the multilateral level, like ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations),” he said.
Morrison said the US president has a great knowledge of politics around the world, including Australia.
‘He understands all that formal, official politics and global order and how it works. (He) understood the Australian relationship very, very well,” he said.
“And so it’s much more orthodox in its approach.”
Controversially, Morrison addressed an issue that has been increasingly in the headlines lately: Biden’s age, 81.
“He’s not a young man, and a lot of people have talked about that, but personally, I found him very good to deal with, particularly one on one,” he said.
American doctors have called for Biden to undergo cognitive testing to show he is fit to serve after a stunning week of gaffes, as well as a Justice Department report that raised serious questions about his health.
The Justice Department report described Biden as an “old man with a poor memory,” finding that he did not remember the years he was vice president and could not remember, “even within several years,” when his son Beau died.
Biden angrily addressed the nation about the Justice Department report, telling Americans, “I know what I’m doing!” and insisting that ‘my memory is fine.’
Morrison also praised Biden for how he treats Australia as an economic and strategic partner.
“I had great respect for Australia and our capabilities, what we could do and our relationship,” he said.
“So he was the orthodox player.”
Morrison claimed Trump was “quite the opposite” and called him a “disruptor.”
“As in his business career, he was a political disruptor,” he said.
The former prime minister was careful to add that “that’s not bad.” There were some things that needed to be altered.”
But Morrison said “Donald was the complete opposite of that.” Donald was a disruptor’
He used China as an example of how Trump altered politics around the world.
“If it wasn’t for Donald, then the world, I don’t think, would have criticized China in the way it did,” Morrison said.
‘And certainly, we were doing it at the same time and so we shared many points of view on it. And I don’t think any other president (of the United States) would have done that.”
Trump took a hardline stance against China on a number of issues during his presidency from 2017 to 2021.
He tightened restrictions on Huawei, prohibiting American companies from working with telecommunications companies that were considered a risk to national security.
“We don’t want their equipment in the United States because they spy on us,” Trump told Fox News in 2020.
“And any country that uses it, we’re not going to do anything in terms of sharing intelligence.”
Trump criticized China during the Covid-19 pandemic during the same year, referring to it as the “Chinese virus.”
He did not apologize and dismissed claims that it was a racist term.
“That’s why it comes from China,” he said.
Morrison was further angered after calling for an international investigation into the origins of Covid-19, prompting China to impose tariffs on several exports.
Morrison also praised Biden for how he treats Australia as an economic and strategic partner.
In April 2022, just before losing the federal election to Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party, Morrison continued his attack on China and Russia.
He said that “an arc of autocracy from Beijing to Moscow is challenging the rules-based world order that our grandparents’ generation sought to secure.”
“We are a liberal democracy that believes in freedom of expression, association and a free press,” he said in his Anzac Day speech in Darwin.
‘We believe that the powerful should not dominate the weak and that all people have the right to live free from coercion, intimidation and the brute fist of force.
“Above all, we believe in human dignity and the right of all people to make decisions about their own lives.”
China returned fire in December 2022, attacking Morrison’s “radical, narrow, wrong and stupid” policies.
The mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, The Global Times, harshly criticized the governments led by Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull.
The outlet claimed they had “deliberately created… problems out of thin air” and “seriously damaged the friendly and cooperative atmosphere built up in China-Australia relations over decades.”