{"id":231367,"date":"2025-10-22T02:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T02:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/231367\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T02:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T02:25:07","slug":"sussan-ley-backtracks-on-call-for-kevin-rudd-to-be-sacked-as-us-ambassador","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/231367\/","title":{"rendered":"Sussan Ley backtracks on call for Kevin Rudd to be sacked as US ambassador"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has walked back from comments she made yesterday when she said Kevin Rudd’s position as ambassador to the US was “untenable” after he copped a spray from Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Ms Ley suggested Mr Rudd could no longer remain in the role after the US president told Mr Rudd to his face “I don’t like you, and I probably never will”<\/a> during a meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.<\/p>\n

Despite the awkward exchange the meeting has been widely praised as a success, with Mr Albanese walking away with wins on almost every major issue he sought an outcome on.<\/p>\n

This morning the prime minister said no-one had worked harder than Mr Rudd<\/a> in helping to secure those outcomes.<\/p>\n

Ms Ley’s backbench colleague Jane Hume was asked today whether she agreed that Mr Rudd should be removed from his position.<\/p>\n

“The call for Kevin Rudd to resign or stand down is probably a little bit churlish,” Senator Hume told Sky News.<\/p>\n

“The work clearly has been done on critical minerals and rare earths by Kevin Rudd personally and I think that he should be acknowledged for that good work.”<\/p>\n

Trump tells Rudd: ‘I don’t like you’<\/a><\/p>\n

President Donald Trump has told Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, “I don’t like you, and I probably never will” during a meeting with Anthony Albanese at the White House.<\/p>\n

She added that Mr Albanese had walked away with a “really good deal” that should be celebrated.<\/p>\n

Senator Hume and Ms Ley’s relationship has deteriorated since the former finance minister, one of the few Liberal women remaining in parliament, was dumped from the frontbench when Ms Ley became leader.<\/p>\n

In a brief press conference in Sydney’s outskirts, Ms Ley was asked whether she still believed Mr Rudd should be sacked.<\/p>\n

“I welcome all the comments from my talented backbench and I know, like me, that they are focused on all the bread and butter issues that matter to us,” she said.<\/p>\n

Asked whether she had made a “captain’s call” on the suitability of Mr Rudd’s tenure without consulting her colleagues, Ms Ley again avoided repeating the demand she made yesterday.<\/p>\n

“Kevin Rudd is the prime minister’s choice for ambassador \u2014 it’s a big job,” she said.<\/p>\n

“What was clear yesterday was that the prime minister has a lot of catching up to do with respect to the relationship with the US and the next steps.<\/p>\n

“I welcomed, yesterday, that important first moves and meetings have happened.”<\/p>\n

Ms Ley noted that the government has not secured relief from US tariffs imposed on Australia, though they are among the lowest rates the US has imposed on a foreign nation.<\/p>\n

Australian officials confirmed that after Mr Trump’s meeting with Mr Albanese, the ambassador again offered an apology off-camera.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump said he was forgiven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has walked back from comments she made yesterday when she said Kevin Rudd’s position…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2324,64,63,139437,139435,74731,74758,44,2325,139436,4243],"class_list":{"0":"post-231367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-anthony-albanese","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australia-us-ambassador","12":"tag-ddonald-trump","13":"tag-jane-hume","14":"tag-kevin-rudd","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-sussan-ley","17":"tag-trump-kevin-rudd","18":"tag-us-tariffs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}