By KYLIE STEVENS, SENIOR BREAKING NEWS REPORTER, AUSTRALIA and KATELYN CARALLE, SENIOR U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER
Updated: 19:09 EDT, 20 October 2025
US President Donald Trump has hailed his friendship with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during talks at the White House despite an awkward moment when the Australian ambassador Kevin Rudd’s past comments were brought up.
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What happened AFTER the Trump-Rudd showdown
A humiliated Kevin Rudd made a beeline for Donald Trump to make amends moments after he copped a savage public spray from the US President over previous comments made about him.
Officials insist that relations between the pair were much more friendly once the cameras were turned off.
As the media was ushered out of the room, Trump was heard asking Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about Rudd.
‘Is this the guy?’ Trump reportedly asked as he pointed at Rudd.
‘He seems like a nice guy.’
It’s understood Albanese agreed that Rudd was a nice guy, which prompted laughter.
Rudd issued a ‘genuine’ apology to the President regarding previous remarks about him.
‘All is forgiven,’ Trump replied.
Trump and Rudd then had what described by officials as ‘an excellent bilateral working lunch’.
‘It went well,’ an unnamed official told news.com.au.
Others present at the meeting recalled there being ‘no issues’.
Rudd’s position ‘untenable’: Ley
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley says Kevin Rudd’s position as Australian ambassador to the US is ‘untenable’ after his awkward exchange with Trump almost derailed the President’s talks with Anthony Albanese at the White House.
And Ley didn’t hold back when she appeared on ABC Breakfast on Tuesday morning, where she described Rudd as ‘the elephant in the room.’
She earlier branded Rudd on Sky News as a laughing stock and blamed him for the fact that it took nine months for Albanese to finally sit down with Trump for official talks.
‘To be rebuked by the President, who didn’t even seem to know the Ambassador to Australia, and then have your own Prime Minister laughing along, was a bit unfortunate, and I don’t think the ambassador’s position is tenable now,’ Ley told the ABC.
She also had mixed feelings on the success of Albanese’s meeting with Trump, saying that the PM still has a lot of work to do.
‘We haven’t secured tariff reductions, which is really important for our steel and aluminum industries,’ Ley said.
‘And the relationship between the US and the UK was able to do exactly that, and those tariffs were reduced by 50 per cent. We have had no comment on that.
‘The critical minerals agreement is a good start but this is a government that doesn’t welcome investment, doesn’t do approvals in the right way and, in fact, has an investment pipeline that’s drying up, particularly in Western Australia.
‘So there is a lot of work to be done.’
Critical minerals deal signed
At the start of the meeting, Trump and Albanese signed the framework of a critical minerals deal, which the US could use to help combat China.
‘We got it done just in time for the visit,’ Trump said.’And we work together very much on rare earths, critical minerals and lots of other things, and we’ve had a very good relationship. We’ve been working on that for quite a while.’
Albanese said the minerals deal would take the US-Australia relationship to ‘the next level’. The Prime Minister is also hoping the deal can be used as leverage in any tariff negotiations with the US.’
This is an $8.5 billion pipeline that we have ready to go,’ Mr Albanese said while signing a deal that Trump added had been negotiated over a period of four or five months.
The agreement involved the processing of minerals, the leaders said.
Critical minerals and rare earths have become a significant issue in the US-China trade war. Beijing has put strict rules on their exports, which has angered Trump.
Trump slaps down Rudd
The US President has met with Anthony Albanese at the White House, and in true Trump style, it didn’t go quite as planned.
Trump lost his cool when he found out that Australia’s Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd, who was also welcomed to the White House as part of the Australian delegation, was critical of him before taking the job.
In what was otherwise a friendly meeting, Trump got curt with Rudd at the formal talks when he found out that he had said ‘bad’ things about him.
Asked if he had any concerns with Albanese’s administration, including Rudd’s past comments, Trump said, ‘I don’t know anything about him.
If you say bad, then maybe he’d like to apologise. I really don’t know.
”Did an ambassador say something bad?’
Trump questioned as he turned to Albanese sitting beside him in the Cabinet Room.’Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know,’ he joked, as Albanese acknowledged that Rudd did.
Trump then snapped: ‘Where is he? Is he still working for you?’
Albanese nodded and pointed across the table at Rudd, prompting laughs from those in the room.
Trump then asked Rudd if he said ‘bad’ things about him.
‘Before I took this position, Mr President,’ Rudd said.
‘I don’t like you either, and I probably never will,’ Trump shot back.
In 2020, Rudd stated on social media that he considered Trump the ‘most destructive’ president in US history.
He deleted those comments in November 2024 after Trump’s election win, explaining it was ‘out of respect’ for the office of the president.
Albanese has also been critical of Trump in the past – but it was all pleasantries when they met face-to-face as the Prime Minister described the two countries as ‘great friends and great allies’, and complimented the US President for his foreign policy initiatives.
He said Trump’s work in the Middle East, which led to the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and remaining Israeli hostages being released, was an ‘extraordinary achievement’.
The President told reporters gathered for pictures of the arrival that he hoped to accomplish ‘a lot’ with Albanese and said his message to the Australian people is: ‘We love them.’
Trump praised Albanese for doing a ‘fantastic job’, and said ‘I hear you’re very popular today’.
‘It’s a great honour to have you as my friend,’ Mr Trump said.
‘It’s a great honour to have you in the United States of America.’
Albanese invited Trump to come to Australia, which the President said he would ‘seriously consider.’
US partnership is ‘strong’: Albo
Albanese insists Australia’s partnership with the US has gone to the next level following his talks with President Trump.
Despite not securing an exemption on tariffs, the PM spoke highly of the relationship between the two nations in a glowing tweet.
Footage of the pair at the White House showed Albanese describing the two nations as great friends and allies.
He added the new agreement signed on minerals and rare earths will take their relationship to the next level.
‘For decades, Australia’s alliance with the United States has supported security and prosperity,’ Albanese captioned the footage.
‘Our partnership is strong. And I’m here in Washington D.C. with President Trump building on it for the future.
Today we’ve announced we’ll make more things together – using Australia’s critical minerals to power American technology.
‘A huge investment by both our countries in Australia. And an exciting new chapter in our shared history.’
Rudd’s nasty Trump comments resurface
Before becoming Australian Ambassador to the US, Rudd described Trump as ‘the most destructive president in history’ and a ‘traitor to the West.’
‘The United States, in the past four years, has been run by a village idiot,’ the former PM tweeted in January 2021.
‘People have seen China continuing to be competent in its national statecraft and the United States increasingly incompetent in its national statecraft under Trump.’
During an April 2022 political science webinar hosted by Duke University, Mr Rudd branded the president-elect ‘incoherent’ and occasionally ‘in love with dictators’.
In a 2017 speech to the Oxford Union, Rudd described Trump as ‘a problem for Australia and the world alike’.
Trump’s comments about Rudd ‘tongue in cheek’
Penny Wong has brushed off President Trump’s fiery remarks about Rudd as ‘tongue in cheek.’
The Foreign Minister then commended Rudd’s efforts in organising the meeting between Trump and Albanese.
‘I think those comments were clearly tongue in cheek,’ she told ABC’s AM.
‘Kevin did an extremely good job not only in getting the meeting but doing the work on the critical minerals deal and AUKUS … and the success of meeting reflects that work.’
Trump-Albanese press conference in full
Missed Trump’s action-packed and often fiery press conference following talks with Albanese?
Watch the full press conference, including that awkward encounter with Kevin Rudd below.
Trump makes no assurances about tariffs
Trump has given no guarantee that Australia will be granted exemptions from his controversial tariffs.
The meeting with Albanese was billed as pivotal: trade, tariffs, critical minerals and the AUKUS pact all on the table.
But Albanese leaves Washington without a commitment that Australia industries won’t be hard hit by tariffs
Read Daily Mail political editor Peter van Onselen’s full analysis of the meeting below.
What was on the lunch menu
Trump hosted a private three-course lunch for Albanese following the talks.
Guests feasted on an entree of fall green salad with sunset tomatoes and a homemade honey dressing.
The main course rosemary roast chicken with celery root puree, asparagus, collard greens, and Dijon mustard.
The meal finished in Aussie style with Red Bartlett Pear Pavlova, accompanied by candied ginger ice cream and berry compote.
The reviews from lunch guests were positive, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Rudd leaves the White House after awkward Trump encounter
Australia’s Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd has been pictured leaving the White House after he was publicly humiliated by Trump during the President’s formal talks with Albanese.
The former Australian PM put on a brave face and smiled as he departed after Trump learned during the meeting that Rudd had previously said ‘bad’ things about him.
‘Before I took this position, Mr President,’ Rudd told him.
‘I don’t like you either, and I probably never will,’ Trump shot back.
It’s understood that Rudd later apologised to Trump off-camera.
‘I apologise Mr President,’ Rudd reportedly told him at the end of the meeting.
Trump apparently replied: ‘All is forgiven.’
Trump ROASTS Aussie reporter
‘You have within your power, the most powerful man on Earth, why don’t you enable Ukraine to finish this war tomorrow?’ she asked.
She was quickly shut down by Trump.
‘Well if you knew anything about what you’re talking about, you’d be able to….,’ he told her.
‘I do,’Â Bourke interrupted.
Trump replied: ‘You do? I don’t think you do, really. I don’t think you do. Because it’s a little more complicated than that, but it sounds easy.’
He then Bourke to ‘be quiet.’
It is not the first time Bourke has made headlines for a tense exchange with a political leader, with Albanese clashing with her in New York in September.
Watch the fiery exchange between Trump and Bourke below.
Trump says Australia WILL get submarines under AUKUS pact
Trump has vowed to escalate the AUKUS defence pact to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia initially promised under the former Biden administration.
‘It was made a while go and nobody did anything about it,’ he said.
‘It was going too slowly. We do actually have a lot of submarines, we have the best submarines anywhere in the world.“
‘We’re building a few more currently under construction and now we have it all set.
‘With Anthony we’ve worked on this long and hard. We’re starting that process right now. I think it’s really moving along very rapidly, very well.“
Asked if he could guarantee Australia would get the boats, Trump said: ‘Oh they’re getting them.’
Albanese pays tribute to Trump
Albanese has taken to X in the last hour to praise President Trump.
He also shared two photos of Trump giving him a tour of the White House.
‘President Trump, thank you for the warm welcome to the White House. Working together we can deliver for both Australia and the United States,’ he tweeted.
Who was there
The White House meeting is the first time the leaders have held formal bilateral talks, and is the sixth time Albanese has spoken with Trump since he was re-elected in November.
The two were meant to meet for the first time on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada in June – but Trump had to depart early due to rising tensions between Israel and Iran.
While they had a brief encounter at the welcome reception for world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month, this marks the first time the two have sat down for a dedicated bilateral meeting.
Albanese was joined by Resources Minister Madeleine King and Industry Minister Tim Ayres.
On the US side of the table, Trump had Vice President JD Vance, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and Secretary of the Navy John Phelan,
AUKUS agreement on track
The Prime Minister also went into the meeting hoping to gain assurances the US would not sever ties with the AUKUS agreement, which would give Australia nuclear submarines.
The more than $300billion trilateral agreement struck with former president Joe Biden had been under review by the US Defense Department to ensure it aligned with the ‘America first’ agenda of Trump’s administration.
Trump said that AUKUS was ‘moving along rapidly’, and confirmed that Australia would get nuclear submarines under the agreement.
When a reporter asked how Trump could guarantee Australia will get the subs, the President replied: ‘Oh no, they’re getting them.’
‘We have it all set, with Anthony we’ve worked on this long and hard and we’re starting that process right now and I think it’s really moving along really rapidly,’ Trump later added.
Secretary of the Navy John Phelan said the US and Australia’s military partnership was important, especially for America to ‘project power into the Indo-Pacific’.
He said AUKUS was being worked on to ‘clarify ambiguites’.
‘We’re looking at the AUKUS relationship and making it better for (the countries involved),’ Phelan said during the meeting.
Trump clarified to reporters that the ambiguities were ‘minor details’ and that Phelan would ‘get that taken care of’.
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What happened AFTER Kevin Rudd’s White House humiliation – as first move he made when the cameras were turned off is revealed: ‘Is this the guy’