First "Lanz" appearance in two years: Spahn has to take a beating - "never popular!"

Created: 05/19/2022Updated: 05/19/2022, 11:40 am

Former Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) as a guest on “Markus Lanz” (ZDF).

© Cornelia Lehmann/ZDF

Markus Lanz discusses with Jens Spahn.

The ex-Federal Minister of Health hands out and only really has to take it once.

In the end, many questions remain unanswered.

Hamburg – When ex-minister of health Jens Spahn (CDU) sat down in Markus Lanz's chair on Wednesday evening, two years had passed since his last visit to the ZDF talk.

The potential for Lanz and his otherwise sometimes stubborn questions was correspondingly large.

But Spahn looked tired, almost powerless.

And with him large parts of the show.

Markus Lanz: He has already reached better altitudes

Right at the beginning of the show, Markus Lanz makes it clear where the journey is going.

He quotes journalist Kristina Dunz, who is sitting in the group: "At the moment he (Spahn) is really going under.

You don't hear anything from him. ”Lanz wants to know whether she is worried about Spahn's political future.

Mind you, the question goes to Dunz, not to Spahn himself. "Nope," she says, "I think Mr. Spahn will always find a job in politics or in business, with him diversified." Lanz laughs: "That's it Yes, a poisonous compliment. "And the viewer wonders whether this should be spoken to or about Jens Spahn.

However, he feels little urge to intervene.

What the viewer does not yet know is that the show has almost reached its maximum flight altitude.

Former Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) in conversation with Markus Lanz (ZDF).

© Cornelia Lehmann/ZDF

Spahn has to accept "Markus Lanz": "You were never so popular"

Lanz states: Spahn "experienced an incredible flight and a pretty hard landing".

And Dunz throws another nasty box on the runway: "You were never the huge sympathizer in the party." Spahn does not challenge something like that.

He's used to headwinds.

And turns good mine into a strange game.

Even when his successor comes up, he remains calm.

Lanz wants to know exactly: "Lauterbach is something for you, the oracle?

The pain in the ass?

The tormentor?”

"Neither," says Jens Spahn.

"We work together in a spirit of trust." "Respectfully?" Lanz asks, knowing full well how disrespectful Spahn used to be about Lauterbach.

"Appreciative," he confirms without his expression giving it away.

These guests discussed with Markus Lanz:

• Jens Spahn

  (CDU, former Federal Minister of Health)

• Kristina Dunz

  (journalist, RND)

• Sönke Neitzel

  (historian)

• Eva Högl

  (SPD, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces)

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He cannot remember any real mistakes during the pandemic period.

But then "two things where I miscommunicated".

On December 26, 2021 at the press conference to start the vaccinations, he was too enthusiastic.

"I raised expectations that we couldn't meet." And Spahn also recalls that proven hygiene experts told him "that masks don't make the difference".

"Markus Lanz": Spahn wants to wedge - but the club comes back immediately

In one of the rare, combative moments, Spahn wants to hit SPD politicians Kevin Kühnert and Thomas Kutschaty.

Reason: Both had registered a government contract after the state elections of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2022.

But the shot backfires.

Lanz and Dunz remind Spahn that he did pretty much the same thing with Armin Laschet after the federal election.

Spahn rows back.

His criticism of another SPD figure was met with more approval: Almost everyone in the group agreed that Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht made a remarkably weak figure.

The military commissioner, Eva Högl, never ends when she lists all the things that are going wrong in the Bundeswehr.

Paratroopers without helmets, combat swimmers without a swimming pool, 30-year-old radios that literally nobody else understands because of the ancient technology, lack of ammunition, lack of laundry... and a minister who lets important appointments and inaugural visits slip.

150 billion Bundeswehr budget.

What happens to the money?

The group is making every effort to research what actually happens to the Bundeswehr budget of 50.3 billion euros per year.

And with the additional 100 billion "special funds" this year.

"What doesn't work there?" Lanz asks, "Something has to come out of it at some point!".

But the group searches in vain.

In the end, the statement remains that the special fund is a euphemism for "everything debt" (Spahn) and the taxpayer can remain curious about what will become of the money.

"Markus Lanz" talk about Defense Minister Lambrecht - historian Neitzel: "Come into office without knowledge"

Historian Sönke Neitzel sees Lambrecht in a growing tradition of numerous miscasts.

"People came to the office without knowing anything," he says.

He can only describe the current situation with a medium-attractive image: "We are standing there with our pants down."

Journalist Dunz is the only one providing some cover for the minister.

She draws the gender card.

"I'd prefer male reporters to focus on what they're about..." But the manslaughter argument becomes a non-starter.

Lanz catches the journalist before the sentence is complete.

Dunz starts again.

The ministry is “very, very difficult”, the minister “has it difficult as a newcomer anyway”, and her qualities as a lawyer and as a negotiator are good.

Spahn summarizes the remarks sarcastically: "So your thesis is: Everything is actually great.

We're just taking it wrong.”

Conclusion of the talk with Markus Lanz:

Many questions remained unanswered, many questions unasked.

After two years of "Markus-Lanz" abstinence, Jens Spahn would certainly have offered more surface to attack.

But instead of questioning the far-reaching and often criticized decisions of a health minister during the pandemic, Lanz preferred to stay in the comparatively low-tension now of Jens Spahn, a member of the Bundestag.

What he's doing right now might interest fewer people than what he did.