- 7 weeks ago
The far-right AfD's success in recent regional elections in Germany has drawn praise from the United States.
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00:00A little election in Saxony-Anhalt has caught the attention of Trump, Musk and Moscow.
00:06Sunday saw the far-right AFD blow the political establishment out of the water at a state level,
00:12a state of only 2 million, I should point out, in a country of well over 80 million.
00:18This election result will have consequences.
00:22It will also have implications for the international situation.
00:27Just looking at who offered congratulations yesterday shows the attention this election result is receiving internationally.
00:38US President Donald Trump posted the first projections after polls closed.
00:42He didn't comment. I guess his German is non-existent, despite his German heritage, which he lied about for a
00:48long time.
00:49Tech billionaire Elon Musk did put his limited German to the test with a gut gemacht, or well done,
00:56he's called the AFD the best hope for Germany and has defended the party against claims of extremism.
01:02The winner of the night, AFD League candidate Ulrich Sigmund, wrote,
01:06Thank you, Elon Musk, for your support.
01:08If we take responsibility here, I would very much welcome the opportunity for strong and constructive cooperation.
01:14But would Germany become a place worth investing in, as he writes?
01:19German business leaders don't think so.
01:22Eric Langenbacher joins us from the American German Institute.
01:26Eric, what's Trump and the MAGA movement stand to gain from Germany's AFD, first of all?
01:33Well, that's the billion-dollar question.
01:36Because when you look at the two movements or parties, a lot of what they stand for are kind of
01:41mutually exclusive
01:42and don't really benefit each other.
01:44So it's really a big mystery what Trump expects to get, except maybe to create more chaos.
01:50He's very good at creating chaos in Germany, which might make a weaker power in the middle of Europe,
01:55and that might be his endgame here.
01:57I mean, obviously, they are in ideological alignment with much that the AFD stands for,
02:03especially the anti-immigration rhetoric, the Islamophobia, the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, and things like that.
02:09So, I mean, ideologically, sure, they're aligned, but I'm not sure what kind of material benefits
02:15Trump thinks or MAGA thinks they're going to get from the AFD.
02:19The other puzzling thing here is that Trump's unpopular in Germany.
02:23Even among AFD supporters, over half see the U.S. under Trump as an adversary, according to a survey.
02:29Can you explain that paradox?
02:32Well, I mean, the other thing is that the AFD has this anti-American bent to it and has for
02:38a long time.
02:39I think it was Krupula who talked about not wanting to be a vassal to the United States,
02:44not want to be subordinate to the United States.
02:46And this is already a while ago.
02:48So before the Iran war, before the Greenland rhetoric and stuff like that.
02:53So I don't know why MAGA has been unaware of this kind of anti-American strain that we see in
02:58the AFD,
02:59if they're just overlooking it.
03:01You also have the whole issue with their pro-Kremlin and pro-Russian angle,
03:05which maybe is one reason that parts of MAGA like him.
03:08But we know that MAGA in the United States is also very divided about Putin, Ukraine, and all that kind
03:13of stuff.
03:13Yeah, I want to get to the Russian angle in a second.
03:16First of all, though, Elon Musk has business interests here.
03:20I'm sure you know about that.
03:21What's he hoping to get out of his support of the party?
03:26Well, I mean, he already has massive investments in Germany, but in Brandenburg, not in Sachsen-Anhalt.
03:32So maybe he thinks that he can get a better, I don't know, tax deal or other kind of subsidies
03:38to build something in Sachsen-Anhalt.
03:41Maybe he will step in.
03:42There was a big chip facility that was supposed to be built by Intel in Magdeburg, which was canceled about
03:48a year ago
03:48and is one of the reasons that the AFD gained traction with their kind of economic rhetoric.
03:53Maybe he'll try to swoop in and replace that kind of like missing investment.
03:58But otherwise, I don't know what else he would have to materially gain from supporting the AFD.
04:04And it was also interesting that the AFD's key candidate who won the election asked Musk for strong and constructive
04:11cooperation.
04:13How else could that cooperation look like?
04:19Well, I mean, there's so much that's shady when it comes to party financing, especially with the AFD.
04:25There already have been numerous scandals of, you know, a donation from here, a donation from there, Russia finding ways
04:32to surreptitiously pay some of the AFD members.
04:36So I don't know.
04:37Maybe the AFD thinks that Musk will somehow be able to channel some money towards them, or it might be
04:42more indirect.
04:43One of the other things is that the U.S. Department of State has all sorts of new grants that
04:48are there for free speech and upholding Western civilization and all these other MAGA talking points.
04:54So maybe the AFD thinks or Musk thinks that he can lobby the State Department for more such funding to
05:00channel towards ideological friends and allies in Sachsen-Anhalt and elsewhere in Germany.
05:06Now, former U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grinnell, celebrated the results as a huge win and a new day
05:13in Germany.
05:14I wouldn't argue with him that the people are ready for change, but I find these parallels with the U
05:20.S. interesting.
05:21These guys reckon the AFD will make Germany great again, basically.
05:24German business leaders see the party as a severe threat to the nation's economy, competitiveness, skilled labor supply.
05:31That's mainly due to its anti-migrant policies, which mirror Trump's and his promises to create America.
05:39A heap of manufacturing jobs have largely failed.
05:42What do you make of the parallels when it comes to the economy?
05:48Well, I mean, you know, I just did one of these online quizzes today about, like, how much do you
05:53know about Trump's economy, right?
05:55And basically everything's worse since when he took over.
05:58The only thing that's slightly better are mortgage rates, but inflation's worse, unemployment's worse, like everything's worse off, right?
06:04So, you know, if this is what they call making America great again, then, you know, I would like to
06:08see the AFD try to kind of respond to that.
06:10No, I mean, I saw another estimate that if the AFD and Sachsen-Anhalt try to do everything that they
06:16say they're going to do, that it would cost an extra 2.2 billion euros.
06:21And Sachsen-Anhalt doesn't have a lot of money just waiting in the wings.
06:26And I can't imagine the federal government or other entities coming in to help them achieve this economic vision.
06:32So, you know, I guess it depends on what you consider making someplace great again.
06:37But from a realist or objective perspective, I can't imagine anything that they're advocating for helping Sachsen-Anhalt and average
06:45people.
06:45I mean, I was just writing to a friend earlier that I can imagine that a lot of the migrants,
06:50you know, Syrians, for instance, are the second largest group of foreigners in Sachsen-Anhalt.
06:55And many of them are medical professionals. So, you know, I'm sure they're packing their bags already.
06:59And, you know, certainly not having a doctor, not having nurses, not having elder care in your rural community is
07:06not going to make things better and will probably make things worse.
07:08So, you know, I'm with all of the objective analyses that, you know, they are probably not going to improve
07:15things.
07:15And they could very well make things a lot worse for the citizens of that state.
07:19And trying to attract even more skilled labour, possibly from abroad, is going to be an uphill battle, considering the
07:30rhetoric it uses, the extreme policies that it wants to introduce.
07:36I just want to bring up a couple more posts which reveal another interesting parallel.
07:41You mentioned earlier the Russia factor.
07:44Republican Anna Paulina Luna wrote, congratulations to our friends at AFD for a massive victory.
07:50Now, the post was liked by Kirill Dmitriev, Russia's negotiator with the Trump administration over the war in Ukraine.
07:59The AFD wants to stop German military support of Ukraine.
08:03It's the biggest European donor.
08:04And Dmitriev also reposted Trump's post, calling the AFD's win historic, claiming it'll put migration under control.
08:12Well, it's interesting he mentions migration, but nothing about Ukraine.
08:16What do you think about the Russian aspect here?
08:21Well, you know, again, I was talking to a friend and I had a list of all the things that
08:25I'm unsettled about if the AFD either rules with an absolute majority or even in a coalition.
08:32And Russia policy was right up there on the list.
08:35You know, a lot of people haven't talked about Zygmunt's second in command in the state, this guy named Hans
08:42-Thomas Tilschneider, who is advocating for more Russian classes, more exchanges with Russia and everything like that.
08:49So they really do mean business when it comes to this.
08:52One of the other big issues that I think has a Russian angle has to do with intelligence.
08:57So they have obviously a national intelligence agency, but then each federal state has their own and all the 16
09:03states share intelligence.
09:05So there's a real worry that if the AFD takes over, it's called the Verfassungsschutz, right, the Office of the
09:11Protection for the Constitution, that if they start leaking or sharing information with Russia, then the entire country is compromised.
09:17So this is, I mean, even though it's a state and they can't affect foreign policy writ large, there's a
09:25lot that they could do that could really compromise the relationship.
09:28Eric, other parties here in Germany often call the AFD, the Kremlin's steuropolder.
09:33The AFD denies that, but it does favor closer ties with Moscow.
09:38Do you think it's a good or bad thing that Trump wants the same?
09:44Well, this is my own kind of personal opinion, right?
09:48But, you know, I agree with the German experts, dare I say the establishment, that the defense of Ukraine is
09:55an existential concern for everybody in Europe, that Ukraine's security affects Germany's security and the security of all other EU
10:04and NATO partners.
10:05So that has to be the number one priority.
10:07Whatever can be done to have Ukraine's back is the most important thing.
10:12So, you know, I think that if that means that you have to have a harsher stance towards Russia, then
10:17so be it.
10:17But, you know, even if there is more of an alignment between some voices in the AFD, and this is
10:22the other thing, too, the AFD has so many internal factions, so many differences of opinion.
10:28Sure, there are the pro-Russian AFD types, and there are those that are not so much, right?
10:32So, you know, it's hard to say that the party speaks with a unified voice, right?
10:36But even if there is alignment, and Trump also changes his mind, you know, sometimes by the hour, certainly by
10:42the week and the month, right?
10:44So now he seems to be a little bit more pro-Russian, but it wasn't that long ago that he
10:48seemed to be more pro-Ukrainian.
10:49So when you have such flux coming from the superpower that is the United States, then I'm not sure that
10:56alignment on Russia is going to mean very much of anything.
11:00Yeah, the other thing that you're sort of alluding to here is, I mean, we've seen the fallouts in the
11:07U.S. between Trump and Musk.
11:09I mean, there could be massive fallouts if this party does get into power.
11:15Who knows if the party's going to survive or implode or what's going to come next?
11:21But there's one more thing I wanted to ask you.
11:23The AFD's made it clear it wants power at the federal level as well here in Germany.
11:29Is foreign support, like the support we're witnessing from Trump and Musk and Moscow, likely to help or hurt that
11:37goal in the medium to long run?
11:40Right. I think that right now, overt support will hurt that goal.
11:44I mean, there was a big change.
11:46I mean, for, you know, a good year and a half, you saw all these AFD members and politicians going
11:53to Mar-a-Lago, coming to Washington, D.C.
11:56Heck, we even had an AFD politician come to my university, Georgetown University.
12:00And, of course, nobody knew about it, but that's one of the other things that the AFD does.
12:04It's kind of secretive and furtive and everything like that, right?
12:08But ever since the Greenland stuff, ever since the invasion of Iran, I mean, Trump is absolutely toxic.
12:16I mean, even within the AFD, I think it was Krupala who said,
12:21like called him a lunatic after the Iran invasion and stuff like that.
12:25So right now, I'm sure the AFD leaders are saying, please, please, please don't go to the United States.
12:32Please don't accept this kind of support.
12:34So that's where we're at right now.
12:36But I have been thinking a little bit about something else, which is that, I mean,
12:40the radicalism of what the Trump 2 administration is doing to Washington, D.C.,
12:47I mean, literally, physically, but to the bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., to higher education across the country,
12:54to program after program after program is truly radical.
12:59And I don't think that anybody was prepared for what they were going to actually try to do when they
13:03came back to power in 2025.
13:05Although, of course, it was all outlined in the Project 2025 Heritage Foundation report, right?
13:13So what Trump has done, and this is what I think is the most dangerous, is that he has proved
13:18to people,
13:19not just in the United States, but worldwide, that this kind of like fantasy politics that nobody thought was possible
13:25actually is.
13:26And that's what concerns me and unsettles me more than anything else.
13:31And that is the impact of Trump on the AFD and on German politics,
13:35showing that these kind of radical course corrections, they would call it,
13:39but these radical policy departures are possible.
13:42Yeah, because, I mean, some of the things that Trump's been changing, like policing, education and culture,
13:48they're all things that the AFD, if it comes to power in that one small state,
13:55they're things, it could change.
13:57I mean, we could see generations of kids learning different things,
14:02culture being restricted or viewed through a different lens,
14:07policing also changed to a certain extent.
14:11So, you know, these are real fears that people are worrying about,
14:16that people are concerned about.
14:18But, of course, this is all at the moment still up in the air to a certain extent, I guess.
14:24Hey, Eric.
14:25It is.
14:26And who knows who's going to actually end up governing that state.
14:29It's going to be an interesting time.
14:32And it could take a long time before we find that out.
14:35Eric, it's been great getting your views.
14:37Thanks very much for your time.
14:39It was my pleasure.
14:40Thanks for having me.
14:42I'm Ben Fuzulin.
14:43Bye for now.
14:45I'm Ben Fuzulin.
14:45I'm Ben Fuzulin.
14:46I'm Ben Fuzulin.
14:47I'm Ben Fuzulin.
14:47I'm Ben Fuzulin.
14:47I'm Ben Fuzulin.