Overview
- He castigated ZDF satirist Jan Böhmermann as having a “devastating” influence on thinking and a harmful effect on Germany’s democratic climate, and he labeled Spiegel Online “the stronghold of wokeness.”
- He argued the press’s treatment of AfD voters has been “a real catastrophe,” urging engagement with supporters as fellow citizens and illustrating the point with a plumber example.
- He described the SPD as “a walking dead of politics,” attributing its decline to identity‑politics fractures between an urban equality‑focused left and working people.
- On Russia and NATO, he said he is largely aligned with AfD positions and called some of Vladimir Putin’s demands “totally reasonable” from a power‑politics perspective, while also insulting Putin personally.
- The remarks were aired on Paul Ronzheimer’s podcast and widely reported on Dec. 21–22 by right‑leaning outlets, with no immediate responses from those criticized noted in the coverage.