Australia’s US ambassador Kevin Rudd is facing calls to resign after his spate of disparaging comments against President-elect Donald Trump resurfaced – causing concern over whether he will be able to work with the president-elect.

Rudd called Trump “the most destructive president in history” and “a traitor to the West” in previous tweets, as well as “a village idiot” and “incompetent” in a 2021 video interview revealed by Sky News.

“The most destructive president in history. He is dragging America and democracy through the mud. He thrives on encouraging, not healing, division,” Rudd wrote on X in June 2020. “He abuses Christianity, the Church and the Bible to justify violence.”

Rudd hastily deleted his earlier tweets insulting Trump shortly after it appeared likely the Republican would settle for running against Vice President Kamala Harris last week.

But Australian officials, particularly concerned about Trump’s 10 percent tariff proposal, worry the damage is already done — Rudd’s insults could damage Australia’s relationship with the United States under a Trump presidency.

“The loose-lipped Rudd is so arrogant that he actually thinks he can go back every insult ever uttered about Trump and get away with it,” The Nightly Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore wrote in an opinion piece on Sunday.

“It is ridiculous to even consider keeping Kevin Rudd in Washington as our ambassador to the United States,” Dore argued.

Michael Kroger, the former president of Australia’s Victorian Liberal Party and a frequent conservative commentator, said Rudd should do what is best for the country and resign.

“Kevin Rudd knows that Australia’s best interests are not served by a fierce critic of Donald Trump as our ambassador in Washington,” he told the Herald Sun. “In Australia’s national interests, Mr Rudd must submit his mission to the Prime Minister who should then appoint a more diplomatic ambassador.”

Former foreign secretary Alexander Downer told the publication that Rudd has made his own job incredibly difficult through his criticism of the US president-elect.

“Kevin Rudd may find this hard to believe, but he may find that Donald Trump has more on his mind than Kevin Rudd’s future,” said Downer, who was also Australia’s ambassador to Britain.

Trump had previously said he did not expect Rudd to keep his job much longer when he was informed of the ambassador’s offensive tweets during an interview with GB News earlier this year.

“He’s not going to be there long if that’s the case,” Trump said at the time. “I don’t know much about him, I heard he was a bit nasty. I hear he’s not the brightest bulb… If he’s hostile at all, he won’t be around long.”

Rudd sought to say that his previous criticism of Trump was made while he was head of an independent US-based think tank, a role that included his regular commentary on US politics in a statement.

He said he deleted his tweets “out of respect.”

“Out of respect for the office of President of the United States, and following the election of President Trump, Ambassador Rudd has now removed these previous comments from his personal website and social media channels,” his statement continued. “This has been done to eliminate the possibility of such comments being misinterpreted as reflecting his positions as ambassador and by extension the views of the Australian Government.

“Ambassador Rudd looks forward to working with President Trump and his team to continue to strengthen the US-Australia alliance.”

Rudd isn’t the only one in hot water for calling Trump names.

During Trump’s first presidency, British Ambassador to the United States Kim Darroch experienced backlash after his comments calling Trump “inept,” “insecure,” and “incompetent” were leaked to the press in 2019.

Trump called Darroch a “pompous fool” and tweeted that he would “no longer deal with him” in response, according to the Spectator. Darroch left Washington soon after the scandal.

And British Foreign Secretary David Lammy called the Republican “deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic” and a “neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath” in earlier comments, the Guardian reported.

Lammy tossed aside his previous criticism in one BBC podcast appearance last week, saying it would be a “struggle to find any politician” who hadn’t said some “pretty mature things” about Trump.