Updated August 8, 2026 — 7:12am,first published 5:25am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. AAA Washington: The US Senate has confirmed former Republican congressman David Brat to become ambassador to Australia, clearing the way for him to fill the diplomatic post that
Updated ,first published
Washington: The US Senate has confirmed former Republican congressman David Brat to become ambassador to Australia, clearing the way for him to fill the diplomatic post that has sat empty for nearly two years.
Brat was part of a block of 74 nominations, including judicial and diplomatic postings, approved on Friday afternoon (US time) ahead of the long summer recess. Trump nominated him for the role in April.
It means he can arrive in Canberra ahead of the 75th anniversary of the ANZUS treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the US, which will be commemorated on September 1.
In the US, Brat is best known as the Tea Party insurgent who ousted sitting House of Representatives speaker Eric Cantor in a Republican primary in 2014, before the rise of Trump.
The New York Times called it “one of the most stunning primary election upsets in congressional history”. Cantor had been a seven-term congressman, and Brat beat him on the right with a focus on immigration.
He lost the Virginia seat to Democrat Abigail Spanberger in 2018, and returned to academia, becoming senior vice president of business relations at a private evangelical college, Liberty University.
Brat has also been a regular guest and fill-in host on Steve Bannon’s influential MAGA podcast War Room.
In one of his most recent appearances, in January, he defended the actions of federal agents in Minnesota who were at that time being criticised over the death of US citizen Renee Good.
“The Washington Post or The New York Times, if anyone went into their office and started throwing bottles at them, lighting up bottle rockets, hitting people, threatening, spitting in their face, they’d be in their pillow rooms crying,” Brat said.
“That’s what’s going on here. Our officers of law, our federal officers, are being assaulted on a daily basis.”
Bannon told this masthead last month that he helped find Brat for the Republicans back in 2014 – and that the former congressman would be “the perfect man for the job” in Canberra.
“David was a forerunner of populist nationalism, he has access to the highest levels of power and he has a big presence in MAGA media,” Bannon said.
Brat, 62, was born in Detroit and gained a bachelor of arts from Michigan’s Hope College, before obtaining his masters in divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary, and a PhD.
He is also an economist who was once described as a “free-market purist”. But recently, he has defended Trump’s tariffs, arguing they were aimed at addressing unfair trade practices.
As ambassador, Brat will have to navigate key matters in the US-Australia alliance including the AUKUS defence pact, critical minerals and Australia’s treatment of the America-dominated tech industry.
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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