Markus Lanz grills Meuthen: "You ran along with these ethnic people"

Created: 02/11/2022 08:21

The talk show on “Markus Lanz” (ZDF).

© Cornelia Lehmann/ZDF

From climate to foreign policy to ex-AfD boss Jörg Meuthen: The "Markus Lanz" group debated intensively, including with the new Greens boss Ricarda Lang.

Hamburg – Markus Lanz seamlessly follows his ZDF talk from the previous evening in his show on Wednesday.

Can the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project fail if Russia violates Ukraine's territorial integrity again?

Green Party leader Ricarda Lang is finding this commitment just as difficult as the SPD co-chairman Lars Klingbeil did the previous evening.

“If the Russians invade Ukraine, there will be consequences that really hurt Putin.

When we talk about deterrence, it might be wise not to focus on one instrument," says the Green Party leader - sounding like an echo of Olaf Scholz.

Moderator Lanz complains to Lang that Klingbeil answered "almost identically".

The Greens make no secret of the fact that there is a coordinated line within the governing coalition.

The host then lets go of the Greens chairwoman and tries to find out with Deutschlandfunk journalist Nadine Lindner and economist Clemens Fuest why top German politicians don't say "this one sentence".

In the USA, too, people were puzzled, says Lindner: "Is it a creed?"

With "Markus Lanz": Green co-boss Ricarda Lang speaks out against the delivery of defensive weapons to Ukraine

Lang sees the traffic light government on the right track.

The appearance of the Ukrainian Foreign Minister proves that the course is having an effect - he said on Wednesday that the diplomatic pressure is having a positive effect.

Lanz inquires whether the no to arms deliveries to Ukraine will remain.

Lang says, slightly evasive: "That's the line.

I'm not definitely ruling that out, but I'm saying that at the moment it's necessary for us to take the diplomatic route."

The fact that fracking gas is being discussed more as an alternative to Russian gas is a necessary evil for Lang.

The funding is too harmful to the environment to be sustainable - but in the current situation, the political obligation to ensure security of supply must also be taken into account.

"Of course" there is a co-dependency on Russia as a supplier of raw materials, and reducing this must be the goal of European politics.

“The answer to this is renewable energies,” says Lang.

LPG from America?

Green leader Lang has to defend uncomfortable Realpolitik with “Markus Lanz”.

Moderator Lanz is less interested in renewable energies than in Lang's possible conflict of conscience and wants to pin it down: "So you support Habeck's plan to get liquid gas supplies from America?

Yes or no?” Lang repeated her answer again, the moderator became impatient.

"Does that mean you don't answer the question?" he asks.

Lang grins at the moderator for a moment and says, "If you see it that way."

"You can't see it any other way.

A conversation is yes: question, answer.

That's the game," the host explains the principle behind his panel discussion.

Lang replies, but she cannot resolve the conflict in her position: On the one hand, she wants to distance herself from LLG gas, and on the other hand, she wants to defend "our green Minister of Economics" for checking whether security of supply in Germany must be guaranteed with the help of this gas.

Economist Fuest jumps aside for Lang and describes the approach of Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) as “exactly right”.

"Markus Lanz" - these were his guests on February 9th:

• Ricarda Lang (Greens)

  – party leader and member of the Bundestag

• Jörg Meuthen (independent)

  - MEP

• Nadine Lindner

  – Deutschlandfunk journalist

• Prof. Clemens Fuest

  – Economist

Ex-AfD politician Jörg Meuthen seems to be quietly enjoying the fact that talk show host Lanz is turning Ricarda Lang through the mangle with probing questions.

Again and again a smile escapes him while Lang maneuvers through her "Markus Lanz" baptism of fire as party leader.

Meuthen only spoke up when the host addressed him directly.

Lanz is interested in the opinion of the conservative politician in the debate about the appointment of ex-Greenpeace boss Jennifer Morgan as State Secretary at the Federal Foreign Office.

Meuthen makes it clear without hesitation that his political opponent has remained the same for him even after leaving the AfD: “I would be happy if Ms. Baerbock would concentrate on doing the actual work.

It is not climate policy via the Federal Foreign Office.”

"That's just an understanding of foreign policy from the last century and an understanding of climate policy from the last century," counters Lang and explains her position: only if climate protection addresses all political areas can it also be implemented.

Lang only says that this is accompanied by "impositions" on society after further drilling by Lanz.

In response, the Greens co-chair envisages supporting people who have to accept financial losses as a result of climate measures.

She asks: "How do we manage that, for example, the money is paid back to the people via climate money?"

Jörg Meuthen is working on his image with "Markus Lanz": "A party exclusion procedure against Höcke would have failed"

It gets more uncomfortable for Meuthen when he himself becomes the focus of interest in the second part of the show.

In a "painful process" he came to the certainty that the AfD "has no future as an alternative" and that he can no longer go along the path that the party is taking, says the ex-party leader.

His goal was to establish the AfD as a conservative, bourgeois force, but in the end he failed with this plan.

Meuthen explains that the AfD has always been “two parties in one”: on the one hand, there have been bourgeois-conservative forces, on the other hand, a wing that is pursuing a völkisch-nationalist course.

“You walked along with exactly these folkish people for an extremely long time.

You prevented Björn Höcke from being expelled from the party,” accuses host Lanz Meuthen.

He replies succinctly: "Because it wouldn't have worked, not because I didn't want him out."

Meuthen leaves no doubt that nationally colored provocations from Höcke's mouth are intentional.

Höcke knows what he is saying, says the MEP.

"He may not be the brightest candle on the cake, but he's a history teacher.

And then he knows what 'Everything for Germany' means and that it has an SA connotation."

"Markus Lanz" group discusses Meuthen's exit from the AfD: "I was a commander without troops"

"If that was so clear to you, why didn't you make the decision at the time to simply leave?" wonders the moderator.

Meuthen dodges - but Lang turns on again.

The fact that Meuthen is now leaving the party has nothing to do with a sudden realization, but is due to the fact that he could no longer see “any prospects for power” in the AfD.

“No one will buy that from you either,” says Lang.

Meuthen dismisses: "Not you.

But take care of the violent parts in your party" - probably an allusion to the recent climate protests on Germany's streets.

Host Lanz intervenes and asks for objectivity, Lang has a point.

Meuthen repeated his view: he was "an incredibly persistent" person who believed in being able to help shape a bourgeois-conservative alternative.

He endured this attempt “longer than others”.

But in the end, Meuthen sums up, he was "a general without troops".

"So powerless," states talk show host Lanz and confirms that he turns in the direction of Lang.

Meuthen throws his hands in the air: "Yes, powerless!

I have no problem with that.

I also freely admit that I failed.”

"Markus Lanz" - The conclusion of the show

Talk show host Markus Lanz confronted the leader of the Greens, Ricarda Lang, with numerous controversial debates about her party on Wednesday evening.

She proves her quick-wittedness and rarely allows herself to be pushed into a corner despite persistent attempts by the host.

The journalist Nadine Lindner and the economist Prof. Clemens Fuest rarely share Lanz's criticism and rate the government's actions more positively.

In the second part of the program, Lanz and journalist Nadine Lindner get to grips with politician Jörg Meuthen (non-party) and analyze the chronology of the radicalization of the AfD, in which Meuthen takes the side of the hardest right-wingers like Björn Höcke (AfD) one after the other.

He underestimated his ethnic-nationalist current in the AfD, and in his role as party chairman, uncomfortable compromises were increasingly necessary.

But it wasn't until "Dexit" was a demand in the party program that he realized that his influence on the party program had become too small to continue.