Trump’s campaign chief claimed he secretly advised Australian Liberal Party ahead of general election

The campaign chief credited with masterminding Donald Trump’s 2024 victory claimed to have secretly advised the conservative Liberal Party on strategy ahead of Australia’s upcoming general election, according to footage obtained by the Centre for Climate Reporting (CCR) and German non-profit media outlet, Correctiv.

Chris LaCivita, Trump’s 2024 campaign co-manager, told undercover reporters that he provided advice to the Liberals about their leader, Peter Dutton, in the weeks leading up to Saturday’s election.

As with the Canadian general election earlier this week, comparisons to Trump have proven an electoral liability for Australian conservatives, with accusations that the Liberal Party has mirrored Trump’s tactics.

Dutton has pledged to cut “wasteful’’ health and education spending along with 41,000 civil service jobs and sought to stoke culture wars, calling ABC and the Guardian ‘’hate media’’, criticising “woke” corporate policies and pledging to scrap Indigenous flags from government press conferences.

During the final leaders debate, Dutton rejected comparisons to Trump, arguing that he didn’t want to be “anyone but himself’’.

But during a series of meetings with undercover reporters posing as prospective clients, LaCivita claimed he had discretely provided advice to the Liberals, specifically related to Dutton.

”I was in Australia two weeks ago helping the Liberal Party there, on some of their structural issues that they were having with Peter Dutton,” LaCivita said. “Things somewhat seem to be moving in the right direction there.”

LaCivita said this on April 16, suggesting that the advice he claimed to have provided to the Liberal Party would have been given just as the official election campaign began.

LaCivita also explained that he likes to “work discretely’’ to avoid public scrutiny and “maintain a degree of freedom of movement”, adding that, despite his visit, the Australian public “never knew I was there.’’

A Liberal Party spokesperson told CCR and Correctiv: “Mr LaCivita is not advising, has never advised, and is not involved in any way with the Coalition campaign. Mr Dutton has not met with him.”

When asked whether the Liberal Party denied having met with LaCivita to discuss strategy earlier this year, the spokesperson did not respond.

Posing as European political advisors, CCR and Correctiv held meetings with LaCivita and his business partner, Terry Nelson, during which LaCivita pitched his services and outlined his playbook for winning elections on a MAGA platform.

LaCivita explained that his consulting work is not simply business – it’s ideological. Europe’s “socialist, communist’’ economic, migration and net-zero policies amount to “an ideology that needs to be broken because it puts the collective ahead of the individual… that’s your boogeyman.’’

In his pitch to our reporters, he advised a radical break from traditional centre-right policies, explaining that in order be successful, “you’re going to have to break some china.” In concrete terms, that would mean taking a much stronger line on migration by reaching out to work with far-right parties.

Nelson, a veteran Republican consultant who worked with a pro-Trump super PAC during the 2024 election, told the undercover reporters that conservatives should “create a broad coalition” around immigration policy.

LaCivita then advised putting the victims of migrant crime on television. ‘’Telling the story through the lens of the victims or the victims’ family members is a very important one, because that’s an emotional story. And it’s quite different having a grieving widow or mother tell the story of who they lost because of the politicians, as opposed to having the politician tell the story about the people that were lost’’.

“As long as migration isn’t controlled. Then the opportunity exists for illegal migrants to commit crimes,” Nelson concluded.

This pitch is born from direct experience, with LaCivita having made immigration the major issue of the US presidential campaign. Trump himself was apparently responsible for the most viral moment – ‘’they’re eating the dogs? No, no, no, no. That was not planned at all. He internalized it and it just came out of his mouth.”

Australia is not the only election LaCivita claims to be working on, although he acknowledged that overt MAGA influence has generally proven unpopular outside the United States. Earlier this year, it was reported that LaCivita was advising Albania’s conservative Democratic Party on their election strategy. According to LaCivita, Albania is “one place where, you know, American meddling in their elections is encouraged. Everywhere else, not so much’’.

LaCivita and Nelson did not respond to requests for comment by CCR and Correctiv. In a statement to Guardian Australia, LaCivita said: “I did not and do not work for the Liberal Party of Australia. I provide consulting to a wide variety of business interests – some in Australia some in the US etc in terms of a political party – I have not.”

“Also, I have never met Mr Dutton, but I hope to when he is elected prime minister.”