It may not have occurred to the Morrison government yet, but ministers should remember what motivated Joe Biden to run against Trump in the first place. It was Trump's defence of white supremacists at Charlottesville. 2/8

"It was there on August of 2017 we saw Klansmen and white supremacists and neo-Nazis come out in the open, their crazed faces illuminated by torches, veins bulging, and bearing the fangs of racism. Chanting the same anti-Semitic bile heard across Europe in the ‘30s. 3/8

"And they were met by a courageous group of Americans, and a violent clash ensued and a brave young woman lost her life. And that’s when we heard the words from the president of the United States that stunned the world and shocked the conscience of this nation. 4/8

"He said there were ‘some very fine people on both sides.’ Very fine people on both sides? With those words, the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. 5/8

"And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime." 6/8 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/25/joe-biden-charlottesville-defines-trump-presidency/

Let's hope Biden's administration will read the acting PM's comment as a poor attempt to deflect a question he'd rather not answer, because Australia doesn't want to provoke Trump with only a few days left in power. 7/8

Because there was an echo of Trump at Charlottesville in the words the acting PM used today. It should go without saying, but now is not the best time in the US-Australia relationship for the Australian side to be whitesplaining. 8/8