Anthony Albanese has to decide whether to keep Kevin Rudd amid Trump friction

Kevin Rudd has eight months before the US election to find his way into Donald Trump’s good graces but - in the meantime - Anthony Albanese must weigh the probabilities.

The only surprise about Donald Trump’s attack on Kevin Rudd is that it took him a year.

Ever since Anthony Albanese picked the former PM to be our man in the US, someone was bound to ask the former president about Rudd calling him “the most destructive president in history” and a “traitor to the West”.

And Trump was bound to be unhappy about it, regardless of Rudd’s protestations that he was merely commenting as an “independent think-tanker”

The big question now is exactly what Rudd and Albanese plan to do about it – because, as much as they might not want to believe it, Trump is a genuine chance to defeat Joe Biden this November and return to the White House.

Donald Trump savaged Kevin Rudd in an interview on Good Morning Britain.

Before Trump opened his mouth and called him “a little bit nasty”, Rudd had been working overtime to pre-emptively repair the damage caused by his pre-ambassadorial sniping.

Speaking to this masthead in January, he back-pedalled from his strident attacks on Trump, and revealed how he was regularly dealing with his long-term Republican friends in Washington who could play key roles in a second Trump administration.

These include his former trade representative Robert Lighthizer and national security adviser Robert O’Brien.

Kevin Rudd’s future as US Ambassador is under threat under a Trump adnministration. Picture: X

Those relationships will not evaporate overnight. The difficulty for Rudd, however, is that the Republican Party is wholly owned by Trump, so when push comes to shove, anyone wanting to get ahead will obviously be loyal to their leader over a former Australian Labor politician.

Some believe the same fate could befall Rudd as Kim Darroch, Britain’s ambassador to the US who called Trump insecure and incompetent in diplomatic cables that were leaked while he was the president.

Trump said he would no longer deal with him and Darroch had to quit.

Rudd at least has eight months before the election to find his way into Trump’s good graces, and you have to imagine he will try, given his fervent belief about the role he can play in navigating the defining geostrategic conflict of our time with China.

In the meantime, Albanese has a decision to make: does he back Rudd and risk souring his own relationship with the potential leader of Australia’s most vital ally, or does he sack him?

An angry Trump or an angry Rudd – it’s not an enviable choice.

Originally published as Anthony Albanese has to decide whether to keep Kevin Rudd amid Trump friction