Influencer Drew Pavlou: Brisbane internet activist who got Donald Trump interested in Iranian footballers
Professional online poster Drew Pavlou alerted the US president to the Iranian women’s soccer team’s plight, although his claim to have saved them is disputed by the Government.
Around 1am Brisbane time on Tuesday online provocateur Drew Pavlou got some exciting news: President Donald Trump had made the plight of the Iranian women’s football team a global story.
As Pavlou scrolled through his social media feed, he saw Mr Trump had re-posted allegations made by Pavlou a few hours earlier on X over dinner that, before the president’s attention, had attracted modest traffic.
Pavlou had said the soccer team was “basically held under armed guard” and the Albanese Government was “trying to get ISIS brides back on planes to Australia” while reluctantly helping sportswomen feeling Islamist persecution.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.The President seemed to have been moved by Pavlou’s message because he publicly urged Anthony Albanese to offer all the young players asylum.
“Australia is making a terrible humanitarian mistake by allowing the Iran National Woman’s Soccer team to be forced back to Iran, where they will most likely be killed,” Mr Trump posted online. “Don’t do it, Mr. Prime Minister, give ASYLUM. The U.S. will take them if you won’t.”
Mr Trump’s interest in the women was so great he called the PM shortly before 2am. According to Mr Albanese, he was able to share the good news with the President: five of the players had accepted Australia’s offer to the whole team to stay.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke was personally sorting out the details, he told Mr Trump.
Greatest achievement in MAGA world
As many Australians heard news of the defectors for the first time on Tuesday morning, the 26-year-old took credit — and feuded with journalists he said were jealous he could influence the White House from a modest apartment in South Brisbane.
“They’re really upset,” Pavlou told The Nightly. “They are thinking: how dare he go over the heads of mainstream media establishment. Trump should have been sharing their articles of course, not Drew Pavlou. I literally helped save lives here.”
Both assertions are questionable, although having your views endorsed by Mr Trump is one of the greatest achievements possible in what is known as MAGA world, of which Pavlou is an enthusiastic member.
Mr Albanese said on Tuesday morning the government had worked for “some time” to help the Iranians, implying Mr Trump’s intervention was too late to have an effect. Mr Burke went to Queensland on Sunday and returned the following day, Mr Albanese said, which allowed him to be present when the players left the control of Iranian officials and were granted humanitarian visas.
Meanwhile, a fight over credit was being waged online.
On X, Pavlou became upset when Australian Financial Review gossip columnist Mark Di Stefano posted: “Shout out to the staffer who had to wake Albo up at 2am to call Trump because he was seemingly popping off on stuff he read on the right wing internet.”
Pavlou also complained about a report on the Sydney Morning Herald and Age websites by North American correspondent Michael Koziol that explicitly credited him with attracting the president’s interest.
“It underlines the power of social media in this administration, where almost everything is conducted out in the open on either X (formerly Twitter) or Trump’s own platform, Truth Social,” Koziol wrote.
Pavlou posted: “They are actually mad that we saved 15 women because they hate Drew Pavlou and Donald Trump.”
Rejected for Billie Eilish
On the internet, conflict is good for business. An activist who came to prominence opposing pro-China students at the University of Queensland, Pavlou makes a living posting on X, where he has 240,000 followers, about twice as many as veteran television journalist Hugh Rimington.
Despite being a fan of Mr Trump’s — he recently posted an admiring video of a public toilet in New York’s Trump Tower — Pavlou was denied entry to the US last month at Los Angeles Airport and detained for 30 hours.
His offence was a YouTube video promising to occupy singer Billie Eilish’s home to highlight her support for illegal immigrants. “No one is illegal on stolen land,” she has said.
Pavlou said he will not abandon the pranks, no matter who he offends. “I will always be annoying,” he said. “I will never give up until I die.”
As for Australia’s military commitment to the Middle East, which will include missiles and a converted Boeing 737 jet equipped with a powerful radar, the Government is supporting Mr Trump’s war while presenting the hardware as purely protection for the United Arab Emirates, where 24,000 Australians live.
“I want to emphasise in relation to the AMRAAMs, they are a purely defensive weapon and so we’re confident about their use,” was how Defence Minister Richard Marles described the AIM-120 medium-range, air-to-air missile designed to shoot down aircraft.
Mr Marles didn’t explain the difference between a defensive or offensive weapon. But such semantic quibbles were lost in a wave of support for the Government’s decisions, most notably from the Opposition, which must be frustrated when Mr Albanese pleases people like Donald Trump and Drew Pavlou.
