The new German government is off to a rocky start as the new Chancellor Friedrich Merz failed to get all his coalition’s votes in the first secret ballot yesterday in the Bundestag (The Gateway Pundit reported). Merz, who is scheduled to talk to President Donald Trump on the phone today, got off on the wrong foot already by criticizing the admninistration’s “absurd statements”.
Christian Democrat Union (CDU) party leader and new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has been waiting in the wings ever since Angela Merkel sidelined him 2002, taking over the helm of what used to be the conservative party in Germany and talking it ever further to the left over the next 20 years.
After Merkel left office 2021, many hoped pro-business Blackrock manager Friedrich Merz would chart a path back to a real conservative party for the Christian Democrats. Merkel’s CDU ceded the right wing vote to the upstart Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which even passed the CDU in the polls, 26% to 24%, two weeks ago over voter disappointment with Merz breaking all his campaign promises in favor of a center-left coalition with the Social Democrats.
Friedrich Merz met with Vice President J.D. Vance just before Vance’s historic and courageous pro-freedom speech at the Munich Security Conference February 14, saying they discussed the war in Ukraine, security in Europe, tariffs and the German political landscape. Merz criticized Vance’s “public lecture on how to deal with populists in our own country, on which we have a very different opinion.”
Merz has vowed not to co-operate with the right-wing AfD party, a policy called the “firewall” or cordon sanitaire, tying him into left-wing coalitions for the forseeable future. In his Munich speech, Vance had said “there is no room for firewalls” in a democracy.
“The Americans are questioning their security guarantees (for Europe) and questioning Democratic institutions”, Merz charged, seemingly deliberately misunderstanding J.D. Vance’s pro-democracy speech. “They are interfering in our elections, which I reject vehemently. It’s none of the American government’s business to tell us how to protect our democracy.”
Merz didn’t seem to understand the conflict with the Trump administration began with EU threats to censor free speech on American internet platforms like Facebook and X. Merz’s coalition government platform includes a provision to prohibit “false statements” on the internet, which many critics noted would leave Merz himself open to prosecution after breaking nearly all his election promises to his voters on Day One.
“Free speech remains free speech,” Merz told the panel at the Munich Security Conference. “But Fake News, Hate Speech and offenses remain subject to legal restraints and control by independent courts.” Referring to President Trump’s eviction of the Associated Press from a priviliged Oval Office audience, Merz charged that “We would never kick out a news agency out of the Press Room of our Chancellor.”
Ironically, he was speaking at the MSC, which bans the largest opposition party in Germany, the AfD, and disinvited the Crown Prince of Iran Reza Pahlavi on orders from the former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens).
Ahead of the phone call with US President Donald J. Trump, Merz criticized “absurd statements from the United States,” referring to the recent spat between JD Vance and SecState Marco Rubio with the parting leftist German Government (Gateway Pundit reported).
“I always had the feeling that America can distinguish between extremist parties and parties of the political center. I did not interfere in the American election campaign and take sides unilaterally for one or the other,” Merz stated.
Actually, Merz had no trouble interfering in US elections 2024, calling Donald Trump an “autocrat like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping” during the presidential campaign.
German politicans went door-to-door in US swing states canvassing for Biden/Harris, as The Gateway Pundit reported.
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