The West seems to be crumbling apart. Donald Trump operates foreign policy with deals and demands that the United States protect democracies from invasions. The alarm bells ring in Europe. Are we suddenly on our own? Is still relating to the United States?
Against this background, Jens Spahn from the CDU and the publicist Marina Weisband will meet on Thursday evening. The ZDF talk show Maybrit Illner is overwritten with: “Trump Deal, Europe pays-what does Merz do?” Jens Spahn therefore appears as a representative of the CDU Merz Party. And get a little mess.
First of all, Marina Weisband, who grew up in Kiev, lectures on the “larger picture” in which we are in:
- “Billionaires are fighting against democracies worldwide,” she says. “This new oligarchy, which is formed in the United States based on the Russian model, represents interests that in any case do not coincide with democracies.”
- In addition, Germany has been in a hybrid war with Russia since 2014.
Therefore, Germany should not only invest in defense, but also in cyber security and in “digital public spaces”. By this she probably means platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) of the multi -illiarche Elon Musk, but also, for example, Instagram and Facebook. There people form their opinion, journalists would get their information. These platforms belonged to “individual billionaires” that “support these authoritarian governments”.
Jens Spahn gets together with Maybrit Illner
Jens Spahn intervenes. “Can we please call a democratically elected government an authoritarian?” Maybrit Illner looks surprised: “Friedrich Merz did that too, Mr. Spahn!” The breathes out, shakes his head, seems annoyed.
“No. So …” Illner now has a trace of excitement in his voice: “He compared Putin to Trump on Sunday!” But Jens Spahn claims that the quote was “another”. Spahn struggles with words: “I can’t recommend it … so we can do it all in Europe. We can lead the debates like that …”
But Maybrit Illner has enough. She is looking for the exact quote from Friedrich Merz in her documents, interrupts Spahn and reads it: ” The interventions from Washington, they were no less dramatic and drastically and ultimately outrageous than the interventions that we hear from Moscow. Merz quotation continues: “‘We are so massively under pressure from two sides that my priority is to establish unity in Europe.'” Illner concludes: “He makes this equidist dance.”
Spahn: “No!” Illner: “Yes!” Spahn: “No!”
The CDU politician seems to have understood his party leader differently than the moderator: “He said that there are attempts to make an impression.” The moderator makes a face that expresses complete lack of understanding. She throws up: “He spoke of a dictator! Friedrich Merz got upset about that.” But Spahn doesn’t work there.
Jens Spahn indignantly: stop “throwing things out here”
Merz never called Donald Trump a dictator: “Now we please stop throwing things here,” he says visibly annoyed. Merz pointed out that Germany does not interfere in American campaigns, and the United States should keep it the same way for German election campaigns. “It’s a fair point,” says Spahn about the statements of his party leader. “That’s why I don’t call Trump an authoritarian ruler.”
Now Elmar Theveßen also wants to interfere with the ZDF correspondent that is switched on by video. But Jens Spahn doesn’t let him have their say at first. He has enough, attacks the journalist personally: he was “occasionally” next to it in his predictions to the election exit in the USA. “I know that,” says the CDU politician convinced. The journalist cannot let this sit on him and contradicts calmly and factually: “That is not true.”
Correspondent ensures clarity
Theveßen continues: “Here you say: ‘When it waddles like a duck and quact like a duck, then it’s a duck.’ Donald Trump actually, you can read and see that, put on the side of the authoritarians of the world. ” This applies to the question of Ukraine, but also for “imperialist cravings” in terms of Panama and Greenland.
Within the United States, one can observe a president who is overriding the applicable American law with executive orders. And about judgments by the Supreme Court. And in parts about the American constitution. This does not mean that he is an authoritarian ruler or dictator. But it means that Trump is moving America towards authoritarianism. And Europeans, but also the Germans, would have to find an attitude.
Jens Spahn is not convinced. He perceives a clear difference between Putin, XI Jinping, and Donald Trump. “I like everything they do? No!” Says Spahn. But he didn’t want to pretend the same political systems.
And so this exchange ends, which in the direction of a Merz exegesis ended-a competition for the correct and true interpretation of the exact wording of the Fast Chancellor Friedrich Merz. If he had only been in the studio himself. You could have saved many broadcasts.
