Bannon's War Room - September 15, 2026


WarRoom Battleground EP 1087: ANDREW SPANNAUS on the EU post AfD victory in East Germany; and COLLIN MCMAHON on AfD's next steps

Episode 5660: The War With AI Episode 5666: Advancement Of AI Leads To Superintelligent Takeover

Episode Stats


Length

53 minutes

Words per minute

149.8

Word count

8,062

Sentence count

438

People

Hosts:
Also mentioned:

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is the primal scream of a dying regime.
00:00:07.620 Pray for our enemies, because we're going medieval on these people.
00:00:12.860 I got a free shot at all these networks lying about the people.
00:00:17.160 The people have had a belly full of it.
00:00:19.060 I know you don't like hearing that.
00:00:20.500 I know you've tried to do everything in the world to stop that,
00:00:22.260 but you're not going to stop it.
00:00:23.180 It's going to happen.
00:00:24.440 And where do people like that go to share the big lie?
00:00:27.860 MAGA media.
00:00:28.760 I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.
00:00:34.640 Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose?
00:00:38.400 If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.
00:00:44.780 War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.
00:00:48.000 hardwell here at the helm on steve bannon's war room good evening well you might remember folks
00:01:00.740 just a week or so ago we had colin mcmahon on who um who laid this the scene perfectly ahead of
00:01:11.880 the german state elections and he was pretty much right on every point he said that the afd were
00:01:19.280 going to clock in at around 44 and that's exactly what happened they had a great result we've got
00:01:25.960 colin and he'll be back on uh to break the results down explain to us what we might expect out of
00:01:32.760 germany in the second half of this show before that i'd like to talk to bring on the show first
00:01:39.700 time on The War Room, Andrew Spannis, an American author and journalist based here in Italy.
00:01:49.860 Andrew, good evening. I know you've written a couple of books and we'll flag these up at the
00:01:55.980 end of the show. And some of the material in those books is directly pertinent to what we're
00:02:00.760 going to be discussing here this evening. The two things, and the reason that I tee this up
00:02:08.380 with a nod towards the developments in Germany, is this.
00:02:14.840 Germany is the European Union's largest member state by both population and GDP,
00:02:24.860 and along with France, though equally it is simply just Germany.
00:02:28.560 These days is the powerhouse, has always been traditionally the powerhouse
00:02:34.140 of European integration.
00:02:36.220 And following the results in Germany, I would suggest already this week, you can see Friedrich Merz, the chancellor, trying to belatedly retake some of the political terrain,
00:02:57.220 having neglected basically the half of, the 50% of his electorate to his right,
00:03:05.920 because he's firmly, let's say, in conventional terms, at the centre.
00:03:10.660 Too little, too late. The AfD, I think, is on a roll.
00:03:13.660 One of the things, however, important, not just in Germany,
00:03:18.340 but right across the European Union, is this concept of national identity and sovereignty.
00:03:24.640 vis-a-vis the European Union itself.
00:03:29.000 This is where you are an expert.
00:03:31.360 Now, let's start off talking a bit about the democratic deficit, as it's known.
00:03:37.320 Say a bit about that, about how the European functions, because this is crucially important.
00:03:44.920 And we'll, I'll just explain what this democratic deficit is in the European Union.
00:03:51.600 We'll then talk about exactly what Frudik Metz is trying to do, along with a number of other member states, which is to pull back down the European Union's budget for the seven-year projection, which they're working on.
00:04:05.720 And I think that, you know, I don't think that the timing of this is coincidental.
00:04:10.120 He's sort of pushing this in the very days after his humiliating defeat at the hands of the AFD.
00:04:17.060 But let's do this in stages.
00:04:18.920 First of all, just say a little bit, if you wouldn't mind, about exactly what is the democratic deficit as far as the European Union is concerned.
00:04:28.320 Okay, thank you. Thank you, Ben, and hello, everyone.
00:04:31.560 I think that we really need to get an idea of what Europe looks like, you know, what the European Union is.
00:04:38.540 If you live in Europe, you hear incessantly how Europe defends democratic values, how what really needs to be done in order to save Europeans, but also to represent, you know, an example for the world is to have a stronger European Union.
00:04:55.280 And what people know who have followed Europe or lived here for a long time is that the process of building the European Union has been very undemocratic, democratic deficit.
00:05:08.700 And the key point is the 1990s, 1992, when basically you have what's called the Maastricht Treaty.
00:05:15.500 This is a treaty, one of the foundational treaties for Europe today, which shifts from what was before called the European communities to the European Union.
00:05:26.580 Before, communities meant that there were a bunch of states, nation states, which got together and they collaborated on things.
00:05:31.480 They cooperated. They set up various economic treaties for allowing for a common market in
00:05:37.560 areas like energy, and then in movement of people. So there were countries, but there were still
00:05:42.220 governments which would make decisions, and they worked together. These were the European communities.
00:05:48.040 In starting the 90s, you had the move towards the European Union. They said, okay, now we're going
00:05:52.080 to move essentially towards a super state. And the key point was, we're going to take away your
00:05:57.380 economic sovereignty. This is what these treaties say. These treaties say that the European
00:06:01.940 EU, it's a bureaucracy, it's not much elected. There are some elected officials, but we can
00:06:07.280 talk more about that, that they get to decide and we're going to set economic policy at the
00:06:13.320 European level, especially budget policy. And then all the countries are going to have to go along
00:06:17.460 with this. That's absolutely correct. I mean, even to this day, the European Parliament doesn't
00:06:27.040 have initiation rights when it comes to legislation. It can amend legislation.
00:06:34.060 But I don't think even today it's able to propose it in and of itself. And part of the
00:06:40.500 reason is that we have this, ironically enough, that we have this democratic deficit, that
00:06:45.720 you have this European Commission, this Europolit Bureau that is totally unelected, that has
00:06:53.300 the driving force in the production of the directives and what have you. And you have the
00:06:59.240 European Parliament. You also have the third institution, the third plank of the European
00:07:03.400 institutions, which is the European Council. And ironically enough, it's member states themselves
00:07:09.280 that both wanted a centrally coordinating role for the European Union to move forward with the
00:07:16.520 federalizing agenda. They wanted the European Parliament, which was the fig leaf and the
00:07:20.960 democratic element, but they very jealously have guarded their own prerogatives via the
00:07:28.620 European Council, which is the council that has, as I say, it's a third part of the third
00:07:33.620 institution, where the heads of government or the respective ministers will sit together and work
00:07:40.460 out and coordinate policy. And really, the European Council has never wanted to cede
00:07:46.180 its prerogatives to the European Commission.
00:07:50.160 So you have, or especially to the European Parliament,
00:07:53.480 so you have this situation where you have the European Commission,
00:07:56.740 which is the driving force, the driving political force
00:08:01.280 in the European Union, headed by Ursula von der Leyen,
00:08:06.120 and nobody voted for it.
00:08:07.880 Nobody voted for her.
00:08:09.240 No member of the public voted for her.
00:08:11.640 No member of the public voted for any of the commissioners
00:08:15.320 which are delegated by the, appointed by the, nominated by the member states themselves and approved by the European Parliament.
00:08:26.080 So that's why we have, that's why we have this democratic deficit.
00:08:30.220 And it's fundamentally important because part of the consequences of that is that the European Commission is insulated from popular, from the popular will, right?
00:08:41.900 Effectively, the public will.
00:08:43.860 I think there's it.
00:08:44.520 And after a number of years, that's created a fundamental dislocation between what people want, and we'll discuss this a little later with you, Andrew, and what the motivations behind the European Commission itself wants.
00:08:59.860 I'll give away on this point, but I want to throw this back to you now, because now you've explained how we have this democratic deficit following 1992, which is really the dividing point in the development of the then EEC, the European Economic Community, into the European Union when it assumed itself.
00:09:23.420 It fully took the essence of itself as being EU law was being now sovereign over that of the member states themselves.
00:09:33.600 That was really formalized. I mean, we'd had some judgments from the European Court of Justice that had indicated that.
00:09:38.660 But it's really that after the post-Maastricht Treaty and the biggest change across the European Union,
00:09:44.500 I think the Maastricht Treaty had was in the UK and the civil war in the British Conservative Party.
00:09:52.760 Because let's not forget that the development of the European Union, the single market,
00:09:58.520 was driven very strongly by Margaret Thatcher, who then, just a year or two after she left power,
00:10:06.580 became the most important opponent of European integration post Maastricht,
00:10:13.880 saying that she never intended Britain to lose its sovereignty.
00:10:18.360 And that then, of course, led fundamentally, it took sort of 15 or so years,
00:10:22.600 excuse me, 20 or so years for that to work itself through,
00:10:26.160 but it fundamentally resulted in Brexit.
00:10:29.500 So let's bring that back now to discuss exactly what's happening in Germany,
00:10:34.780 what happened in Germany with this landmark election out in Saxony-Anhalt
00:10:39.920 in the eastern state um and the afd there they got i don't think any party had got 44 percent
00:10:49.080 as high as that since the second world war an astonishing result tie tie this in tie this in
00:10:54.780 if you wouldn't mind andrew with with um tie that result in with germany and with friedrich
00:10:59.840 coming along now saying this week that he and a number of other member states are going to oppose
00:11:06.000 the European Commission's pitch to increase its budget by 60% from the seven-year period starting
00:11:14.620 from 2020. Is this the belated attempt where member states sort of fight back against the
00:11:21.240 European Union because the member states themselves are very aware that they are
00:11:26.340 losing democratic legitimacy? Well, I think there's a long path to get to this. I'll try
00:11:33.380 to do it quickly. It's important to remember that the Maastricht Treaty was only voted on by
00:11:37.320 three countries. This is a big part of the democratic deficit, is that the construction
00:11:41.260 of this European bureaucracy was generally not democratic at all. It was approved by
00:11:47.780 parliaments, often without a public debate. So there was not, the goal was we're going to create
00:11:54.320 a new, we're going to cede our sovereignty. We're going to cede our sovereignty, at least in some
00:11:58.120 areas. Now, as you pointed out, there's the European Council and states have been very
00:12:02.380 careful not to see at all their sovereignty. But you created this situation where we're going to
00:12:07.720 decide centrally what the basic economic policy is going to be. And it's very important to realize
00:12:13.320 that this was based on globalization. This was based on the idea of the common market. And we're
00:12:20.200 not going to let single countries be sovereign and make their own decisions. This is very important.
00:12:25.480 It pertained to Germany, it pertained to Italy, it pertained to various countries. We don't want
00:12:29.120 countries going off on their own and having economic relationships wherever they want,
00:12:34.440 having state intervention, having industrial policy. The treaties are written very clearly
00:12:39.560 to avoid any sort of public direction of economic policy. So this takes away sovereignty
00:12:47.000 from your government. So when you have, in various countries, you have a crisis, you have people
00:12:52.600 have difficulty, you need to deal with the needs of your population, the government technically
00:12:58.020 can't do it. They have to go ask for permission from Brussels. And this is a huge thing. It
00:13:04.420 happened, we saw it in the crisis, you know, the so-called Euro crisis 10, 13, 14 years ago.
00:13:10.280 You have to go ask for permission. In Italy, it still happens all the time. You have to negotiate
00:13:13.880 on your budget. And in Germany, there was a great deal of opposition from various groups in Germany
00:13:22.100 saying we cannot give up sovereignty over our currency, over our economic policy. Now, Germany
00:13:28.480 did a couple things. One, they had some years where the economy seemed to be doing very well,
00:13:33.460 so it seemed like they were getting over it. But they had many areas in Germany which had
00:13:38.120 been cannibalized, their economy, especially in the eastern part after reunification in the early
00:13:43.100 90s. And then they cut social spending, they cut wages internally in Germany, as they did in many
00:13:50.640 other countries. This was the European policy. We're going to keep costs down inside Europe.
00:13:56.820 Salaries, pensions, social policy. That way we can make more money exporting. So if you're wondering
00:14:03.340 why some people in the U.S. are saying, well, gee, Europe's been taking advantage of us. Well,
00:14:08.060 sure, bad decisions were made in the U.S., but it's true that Europe's policy has been,
00:14:12.780 has been, okay, we're going to make money, right, by depressing basically the labor force inside
00:14:18.260 to Europe and also bringing in cheap labor. That's another aspect of it, immigration, right? So we
00:14:23.200 can sell to others. So here you have Germany now, which is in a serious economic crisis, right? And
00:14:30.160 especially because it helped, it hoped that it could run the world by its automobile sales,
00:14:37.100 especially in China. That's not working out because China's now making a lot of cars, right?
00:14:41.760 Germany really counted on the auto industry.
00:14:47.120 And so you have situations, parts of Germany and various parts of German society, which want a better economic policy.
00:14:55.000 And you're not allowed to do that technically in Europe under the European rules.
00:15:00.940 And so people are saying in the population, we need education, economic well-being, basic services for the population.
00:15:11.660 Those were the top issues in the election for people.
00:15:15.620 And the European Union is seen as the problem here.
00:15:19.640 It's seen as the problem that set up a policy which takes away sovereignty from national governments, which are no longer able to respond to their people's needs.
00:15:27.660 we're just going to dig in in a couple of moments over to over into what's exactly happening here
00:15:34.400 in the european union with regards to the popular incredibly interesting poll conducted that shows
00:15:42.020 exactly where people are with regards to european integration we'll dig that down in a couple of
00:15:46.520 moments but first let me let me just come back to you and ask you this um do you see because it's
00:15:52.780 important what germany's not malta right it's um it's uh it's it is the economic and political
00:16:01.940 powerhouse of the the european union when you see friedrich metz the chancellor leading the battle
00:16:09.340 amongst certain member states for example germany denmark the netherlands austria finland
00:16:16.500 Sweden. But Germany is leading them here when they're combating the commission's pitch to
00:16:24.420 increase its budget by 60% to 2 trillion euros for the 2028 to 2034 seven-year period. When you
00:16:37.700 see germany doing this do you think that this massive vibe shift on behalf of the european
00:16:47.400 union's most powerful member state as a consequence of the growth of support for the afd
00:16:56.020 i certainly think that's a response uh you're seeing from the german from the german government
00:17:02.680 no question about that. Because Germany has, and it's one of the countries which has been very
00:17:08.800 careful about, you know, where there's been this big debate always of, we don't need to give up
00:17:14.840 too much of our power, of our economic power or economic strength. And there's some confusion
00:17:20.300 there because the Germans for years, the Germans and the French said, oh, we're helping out all the
00:17:25.000 poor countries. We're giving money to Greece. We're giving money to Italy and to Spain by bailing
00:17:30.040 these countries out. This was 2010, 11, 12, when in reality, the European Union was giving money
00:17:35.400 to those countries to pay back to German banks, German and French banks. They were actually
00:17:39.920 helping themselves. But I do think this is a response to this situation. And I think it's
00:17:47.360 important to realize that most people, obviously, your normal population, people who go to vote,
00:17:53.720 the great majority, they don't know the details of the European budget. They're not particularly
00:17:57.640 interested in that. The European Commission doesn't really care about explaining it,
00:18:03.140 explaining the details of this budget to everybody. What it is, is, okay, we have issues,
00:18:08.280 we have problems, economic problems, which we have not, you know, which have not been dealt
00:18:13.380 with effectively over the years. Things are getting worse in Germany right now. And the
00:18:17.320 example of these problems for us is Europe, is the European Union. You know, Europe, as many people
00:18:22.660 around here say. It's the European Union. So any idea that we're going to reduce our voice,
00:18:30.820 our role, means that that's not what we want. And it's important to, there's this principle
00:18:37.780 that people used to talk about in Europe, especially Christian Democrat parties, which
00:18:43.000 is still a large party, that's Merz's party. Let's talk about subsidiarity, that decisions
00:18:47.820 should be made as much as possible close to the people. In Europe, they're doing the exact opposite.
00:18:52.080 We're going to make decisions as far away from the people as possible at a centralized level because we know what's good for you, even if, gee, you can't see it.
00:19:00.420 You can't see what's good for you, but we know.
00:19:03.540 Andrew, we could spend the whole show talking about that thing.
00:19:06.140 You and I both live here in Italy, and it's not just the fact that the political class, from the election of the president of the republic himself, that is not a popular vote.
00:19:16.400 onward. It's not just the political class, the continental way of doing politics, let me put it
00:19:21.900 like that, of which Italy is a prime example. It isn't just the case that the political class
00:19:27.000 is removed from the people. And this point will strike you as an American living here in Italy.
00:19:34.000 It's that the people are complicit in that themselves. You've probably had the same
00:19:39.880 conversation that I've had. Everyone bemoans the corruption of the judiciary. Try persuading them
00:19:44.800 than the merits of a jury system.
00:19:46.780 They're not interested.
00:19:47.740 They're not interested in a political system
00:19:50.040 where the citizen has more agency.
00:19:57.720 It's so foreign to Anglo-American ears,
00:20:01.080 but it explains a lot.
00:20:03.740 Look, I want to come back to you about this poll.
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00:20:33.740 And here in the United States, the interest rate repayments on the national debt have now reached 1.2 trillion dollars, annualized rate, 1.2 trillion dollars per year.
00:20:47.780 That's a huge amount of money. And it's more than America is spending on its defense.
00:20:53.800 And as I say constantly, when you think of the fact that America is the world's largest military industrial complex that humanity has ever known, that complex is spending more money on servicing its debt than it is on its military prowess, which ought to get one thinking.
00:21:15.780 As a consequence of that, and most people are thinking that there's going to be an interest rate rise from around December onwards, the debt's going to become more expensive.
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00:22:55.980 All right, very quickly back now to Andrew Spannis.
00:22:58.520 um andrew i've seen this poll which has been pushed out quite heavily um in the mainstream
00:23:07.700 media including the guardian which um says 68 percent of respondents um are talking in terms
00:23:19.700 of a general deterioration or loss of normality compared to just 12 percent who say they view the
00:23:27.580 present present moment as a time of european awakening and renewal nobody this is a fundamental
00:23:33.640 difference now um nobody is looking very very few only the ideologues only the the pro-european
00:23:40.700 fanatics now are looking to the european commission um as we move forward um
00:23:49.020 here's another statistic 74 said europe was not dealing well with the issues that face
00:23:56.140 the young people's 56% said they believe that the Europe's very future was in danger what just in
00:24:05.200 the closing minute and a half what are you drawing from these results as far as the European Union
00:24:12.140 goes and how does that impact on the United States well I think there can be something useful
00:24:18.780 if we look at these numbers you know and talk about them because but the basically the the
00:24:24.540 approach here in the past year and a half has been Donald Trump came back into the presidency
00:24:28.700 and he's creating chaos. He's being against Europe. So we need to get together and we need
00:24:36.260 to defend ourselves. We're going to be the great defenders of principles and democracy here in
00:24:40.780 Europe in opposition to Trump. And I think this is a very bad idea. Not because you have to agree
00:24:47.180 with Trump on everything. He does a lot of things I don't agree with. But Europe is not recognizing
00:24:53.120 its own problems. And a lot of things that J.D. Vance pointed out in Munich last year,
00:24:59.560 a lot of these things are real problems Europe has with democracy, obviously with immigration
00:25:06.500 also, but with industrial policy, in my view. Europe has a lot of road to travel to recognize
00:25:16.820 what's going on in the real world in terms of industrial policy, real power competition. That
00:25:20.720 is actually working in your national interest and not based on the rules, the rules of globalization,
00:25:27.060 which allow various interests, private interests, to decide where your country is going to go and
00:25:34.820 ignore popular sovereignty. So I think this is a moment where people, yes, there are lots of
00:25:41.680 problems in the world and we need to deal with them, but you need to deal with them by actually
00:25:45.260 thinking about what are the interests of your country? And you can work together with other
00:25:50.080 countries that's fine but that's not a bunch of bureaucrats who set out 30 years ago and said we
00:25:54.340 know what's best for you and you're going to do it our way and sometimes that means cutting your
00:25:58.380 you know cutting your your your pensions cutting your your welfare cutting your investments in
00:26:02.880 you know in whatever in basic infrastructure that's not the that's not good for people so
00:26:09.140 there's that'd be a much better much better way to go i absolutely agree with you uh and i think
00:26:14.400 vice president vance was absolutely correct at what he said in munich but i don't think people
00:26:18.920 all listening look where do people go i know i want to flag up your book original sins globalization
00:26:23.580 populism and the six contradictions facing the european union where do people go on there it is
00:26:29.540 that's the go on amazon if they want to look into that on social media you're on instagram right
00:26:35.980 rather than twitter where do people go if they want to give you a check out on your profile
00:26:41.180 both instagram and and x you know twitter and you can find it andrew spanish is just my
00:26:47.240 you'll find me that way uh articles in english on there's a website named pluralia so you can find
00:26:55.060 them there and respond is very great very grateful for you coming on the show i hope to get you back
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00:31:14.860 Hello, America's Voice family. Are you on Getter yet? No. What are you waiting for? It's free. It's
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00:31:47.080 Welcome back. Well, last week we had, as I was saying at the top of the show, we had Colin McMarnon,
00:31:52.920 who laid the scene perfectly ahead of the state elections in Germany.
00:32:00.820 I'm amazed because you have all these,
00:32:03.320 everyone in Germany was sort of walking around ashen-faced,
00:32:07.640 apparently surprised by the result.
00:32:10.880 We had the president of the German Catholic Bishop's Conference
00:32:15.980 put out a statement saying,
00:32:17.200 oh, our worst fears have come true on all the rest.
00:32:21.700 They should have watched The War Room last week. It was all there. Colin laid it all out for you. What did he say? He said that the AFD were going to get about 44%. That's exactly what happened. The AFD got 44% in Saxony and Hull.
00:32:38.340 Colin, good evening
00:32:40.640 thanks for coming back on the show
00:32:42.920 to help us break this down
00:32:44.340 correct me if I'm wrong, I think that is the highest
00:32:46.780 result of a political
00:32:48.720 party since the second world war
00:32:51.100 incredible result
00:32:52.540 for the AFD
00:32:54.160 just lay it out now, what does that mean
00:32:56.180 now for
00:32:57.640 for Germany specifically
00:33:00.100 with regards to the
00:33:02.200 Brandmauer
00:33:03.660 the fire war, just say once
00:33:06.500 again, I know you say
00:33:07.840 you know say once again what the firewall is why it was introduced what the hope of it was
00:33:14.360 i think what 13 or so years ago when the afd was founded and why are more and more people saying
00:33:22.100 that it's it's failing now it's time time to drop the drop the firewall hi ben good to be with you
00:33:29.540 and the posse on this day commemorating the the passing of charlie kirk a year ago um yeah uh
00:33:37.040 Germany is a bastion of far-left wokeism in Europe, of course. It's the heart of darkness
00:33:45.600 in the EU in that way. That's why it's really important that we're starting to make a chink 1.00
00:33:51.000 in that wall. The first step was for the conservative or right-wing party, the alternative 1.00
00:33:58.040 for Germany to start actually getting in government at some point. The easiest thing is at the state
00:34:03.840 level. They already have some mayors here and there and some municipalities, but that's small
00:34:09.260 change. But now the small state of Saxony-Anhalt, which is between Saxony and Lower Saxony,
00:34:17.280 kind of if you imagine the Saxons heading for England as the Anglo-Saxons, they follow the
00:34:21.620 Elbe River, and right in the halfway to England is Saxony-Anhalt. And it's a small state of about
00:34:31.040 2 million people. But the people there are very based. They're very conservative and aware of
00:34:37.200 what's going on, as in all the East German states who have lived through communism.
00:34:42.060 So we knew going into this election that the AFD would do really well. Plus, they have a very
00:34:48.760 charismatic candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, who's 35. He's an advertising executive. He's a young guy
00:34:54.960 with a beautiful wife and just the kind of guy that you want to go have a beer with.
00:35:01.040 Um, so, so going into the elections, it was very clear that the AFD would do very well,
00:35:08.320 uh, and they have, um, and, and that's going to put pressure on the, the chancellor, Friedrich
00:35:15.280 Merz.
00:35:16.020 Um, he was already on the defensive yesterday in the Bundestag.
00:35:20.100 They had their first session, uh, after the, the summer recess and, and AFD leader Alice
00:35:25.440 Vidal was really chomping at the bit to go after Mertz, and Mertz really had no response.
00:35:32.900 People are already speculating when the next election comes down in two weeks on the 20th
00:35:37.300 in the also East German state of Mecklenburg, Western Pomerania, which is up by the Baltic
00:35:42.940 Sea there, if the CDU does as poorly as the polls are showing now, they have them down
00:35:50.080 at like 6%, then it could be the end of the Mertz government.
00:35:56.140 And before that happens, I mean, so I guess you're going to be one of the people that doesn't think the present government is going to be able to make it to the end of term.
00:36:05.520 But in the meantime, before the next elections and the inevitable happens, in the meantime, what will happen to the AFD specifically with regards to the firewall?
00:36:17.500 Are the other parties, the establishment parties, going to start working with it in coalitions?
00:36:25.440 um, at, at, at state level. Well, there's, there's still, they're still trying to keep their,
00:36:31.660 their firewall intact. Um, but, but like I say, this is the first chink in that wall. We've seen 1.00
00:36:37.040 this leftist party called the, uh, Sarah Wagenknecht Union, uh, founded around a, uh, a former member
00:36:44.200 of the East German Communist Party. Um, Sarah Wagenknecht, uh, say they are willing to enter
00:36:50.440 into negotiations with the AFD and Saxony Anhalt because they, they just barely missed, uh,
00:36:55.420 threshold for an absolute majority in Saxony-Anhalt, also due to mail-in ballots. We can talk about
00:37:01.760 that a little bit as well. But the AFD has 39 seats, and they need 41. And the Bundes-Sauer-Wagenknecht
00:37:09.900 has five seats, and they may be willing to enter in some sort of coalition or toleration or whatever
00:37:17.380 you want to call it. We'll see where that goes. I think the AFD would prefer a conservative
00:37:23.480 partners, such as rogue delegates of the Christian Democrats, of the Rhino Party,
00:37:31.520 but they won't be coming out publicly anytime soon, probably.
00:37:36.620 I'm going to ask you about Sarah Wagenknecht in a moment, but right now, I just want to
00:37:43.260 just, if I can hold you on this point about the firewall, because it's important. It's important
00:37:49.840 with regards to the strategy of containment
00:37:54.240 with regards to the established parties vis-a-vis the AFD.
00:37:59.240 Because there's another school of thought that says
00:38:01.640 if you actually really want to reduce the AFD's popularity somewhat,
00:38:07.960 let's get them constrained by the realities of power.
00:38:11.560 Let's bring them into government 0.99
00:38:14.820 because that will then start to mean that they dirty their hands 0.99
00:38:18.060 with the inevitable compromises that governing requires.
00:38:22.940 But your analysis on this, for the time being,
00:38:29.520 this firewall, the plan de Mauer is going to remain,
00:38:32.940 and then none of the established political parties,
00:38:36.340 the centre-right, Christian Democratic Union, the centre-left,
00:38:40.200 the uh um none of the the the establishment political parties are going to work with the afd
00:38:50.780 at any level between now and the next general election that's you that's your analysis on this
00:38:56.180 is that correct well i don't know it's hard it's really hard to tell things are really starting to
00:39:01.220 change now when you when you had the afd down at 12 or 10 percent you know it was easy to write
00:39:06.240 them off as far-right or extremists or Nazis, when they're earning 44%, 43.8% of the vote in
00:39:14.000 a state, you can't really do that anymore. So we're experiencing here with the radio station
00:39:19.480 I work for that people are suddenly willing to talk to us, being considered a right-wing radio
00:39:25.000 station that wouldn't have done it a year ago. We just had an interview today with a cardinal
00:39:29.920 from Rome, Cardinal Gerald Müller, who wrote an article protesting the German left-wing
00:39:36.940 Catholic Church boycotting the AFD.
00:39:40.580 So now we have cardinals in Rome coming out saying, hey, you shouldn't be boycotting these
00:39:45.640 people.
00:39:46.220 This is undemocratic.
00:39:47.120 And we have journalists who are leaving the left-wing mainstream press and joining alternative
00:39:55.820 outlets.
00:39:57.160 It's a real sea change. 0.99
00:39:58.800 It's a real cultural shift, and that will reach the Christian Democrats when they start 0.68
00:40:02.940 losing their jobs. 0.81
00:40:04.300 Alice Weidel made a very good point in her speech yesterday, her firebrand speech, calling
00:40:09.900 out Friedrich Meritz and just making him look in absolute shambles.
00:40:13.460 And she said, you and the Christian Democrats, you look around left and right in your parliamentary
00:40:17.860 seats, and next time there's an election, half of you will be gone.
00:40:21.960 You will all lose your jobs, or half of you will.
00:40:24.520 So the person sitting next to you or you will not have a limousine, will not be earning 15,000 euros a month anymore, and you've got to think about where you're going with this.
00:40:34.040 So when you can present arguments like that, which really affects people's pocketbooks, politicians' pocketbooks, their future, their economic future, the safety of their families, they're going to start thinking twice about this firewall thing, because it would be very easy to institute sensible conservative policies in Germany.
00:40:53.100 You know, stop destroying the economy. Stop the climate madness. Stop the open borders. Stop supporting Hamas and Hezbollah and terrorists, you know, funding the Muslim Brotherhood. These are all very easy things to do, like Donald Trump has shown, you know, helping the economy and helping business is not that hard. You just have to do away with the socialist madness.
00:41:13.840 this is really the point colin because as ashen face as all these guys are as paranoid and
00:41:23.080 terrified of losing their seats as they are they could turn it around i'm not going to come here 0.85
00:41:29.200 on the war room and tell them what they need to do that it's pretty obvious if you follow the 0.99
00:41:33.440 they need to stop the invasion and start returning those people who've broken illegally into germany
00:41:41.560 who are living in Germany at taxpayer expense, 0.99
00:41:44.660 who are responsible for the huge explosion in crime 0.86
00:41:48.800 and sexual crime against women and children.
00:41:51.680 The government started sending those people back.
00:41:56.160 The support for the AFD would implode from one day to the next.
00:42:01.400 But, you know, I obviously support the AFD.
00:42:07.220 So I can say this quite comfortably, it's not going to happen.
00:42:10.820 And Friedrich Merz isn't going to do that.
00:42:13.180 He's going to continue to obstruct the will of the German people
00:42:16.620 until the day that they're all wiped out,
00:42:20.180 their seats are all transferred from the establishment,
00:42:24.480 Uni Party, over to the AFD.
00:42:26.140 And then they're all, once they've left Parliament,
00:42:28.700 they're all going to hit the television studios.
00:42:30.600 And so this is the rise of the far right,
00:42:34.080 when it, of course, is nothing of the sort.
00:42:36.660 Stay with me, Colin.
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00:45:58.820 Okay, back now in the closing five minutes of the show with Colin McMahon.
00:46:03.320 Colin, just tell us a bit, if you wouldn't mind, about Sarah Wagenknecht.
00:46:09.060 You were saying something before about her party.
00:46:13.840 It is unusual, especially right now, because the press are calling her far left.
00:46:19.240 but she could be the kingmaker her party should be the kingmaker they did spectacularly well
00:46:26.280 in the elections i think they got over the well they did get over the threshold
00:46:32.160 of five percent which is designed to keep the small insurgency movements out i think her
00:46:38.800 political movement had been declining over recent months but it's sort of clearly and
00:46:43.060 and suffering suffering from infighting but now it's clearly bounced back and she hasn't sort of
00:46:48.380 clearly hasn't suffered the defections from a couple of weeks ago. 0.99
00:46:54.480 Here's why the warring posse might be interested in Sarah Wagenknecht. 0.99
00:47:01.120 She is on the left, but she, unusually for the left, is against the invasion.
00:47:10.680 She is against, very strongly against, Germany supporting Ukraine in the war.
00:47:18.380 and has a policy I would couch it in terms of basically strategic neutrality
00:47:24.260 with regards to Russia. 0.96
00:47:26.980 So those are three things that I think will interest the war in posses.
00:47:30.600 I think it will alter interest as well the AFD.
00:47:34.660 Just tell me about her growing role then, Sarah Wagenknecht, in German politics,
00:47:40.900 because she seems to be the analogue of what the AFD is,
00:47:44.480 but on the left of the political spectrum.
00:47:46.800 yeah very much so but she's she's really actually kind of a traditional you know east german
00:47:52.760 communist or socialist she was actually in the she joined the east german communist party in 1989
00:47:58.500 just as just as the wall was about to come down you know she was one of the last last troopers
00:48:04.580 there um and then went right into their follow-on party which is called the party of democratic
00:48:10.380 socialism, that may sound familiar to some Americans, and stayed with them until 2021,
00:48:18.060 I guess, until she started kind of protesting against the new left, the wokeness, the mass
00:48:25.280 immigration, the gender stuff, basically because she's kind of an old-style Marxist. She believes
00:48:33.220 in the working class and the locals. I mean, Stalin wasn't an internationalist. He was
00:48:40.100 a nationalist, and so was Mao. There wasn't a lot of multiculturalism in the East Bloc,
00:48:48.000 and that really reflects where she's coming from. She saw her party drifting ever more into this
00:48:53.800 crazy woke left, and wrote a book first about what she thought was going wrong, and then basically
00:49:01.260 split off and formed her own party named after herself, the Sarah Wagenknecht Union, Bündnis
00:49:08.160 Sarah Wagenknecht, and has been close to the AFD on things like immigration and gender and stuff
00:49:16.620 like that. But she's a hardcore socialist. So she does appeal to AFD members in the East who are
00:49:24.420 more akin to socialism. You know, there's a split in the AFD between free market capitalists and
00:49:32.520 European-style right-wing socialists. So we'll see where that goes. Ulrich Sigmund hasn't really
00:49:38.480 come down on where he is on that spectrum. He said, basically, he wants a stable government.
00:49:47.120 He doesn't want to go back on his election promises like Friedrich Merz did. Friedrich Merz
00:49:52.340 promised a balanced budget and closed borders and tightened security. And then as soon as he
00:49:58.420 was elected, he reneged on all his promises, ran up the highest deficit Germany has ever had,
00:50:04.560 and kept the borders open. So that's what Ulrich Siegmund doesn't want to do, and whoever can help
00:50:12.000 him get over that threshold of the three more votes he needs is welcome to talk to them. I think
00:50:19.440 the Sarah Baden-Krech thing is very dicey. They just split, as you mentioned, over Thuringia,
00:50:25.180 because in Thuringia, the AFD could also rule,
00:50:29.040 they could also run the state,
00:50:30.800 but the Bundestag there decided to form a coalition
00:50:35.060 with the RINOs, with the Christian Democrats,
00:50:37.780 and keep the firewall intact.
00:50:41.940 Look, we've got about 30 seconds left.
00:50:44.980 I'll just point out, right? 0.97
00:50:47.340 Yeah, I mean, she is an old school socialist,
00:50:49.160 but there's a, I mean, I often find,
00:50:52.700 And look, I'm a free market capitalist with quite strong libertarian leanings.
00:50:58.740 There's a huge swathe within the populist nationalist movements around the world.
00:51:04.840 However, there isn't that enamored by free market capitalism and is quite open to socialism, especially when it's non-ideological socialism and it's just trying to get a better deal for the ordinary working guy.
00:51:21.300 I would put in that camp, by the way, Marine Le Pen.
00:51:25.640 I think there's a very strong overlap, for example, with her on those things.
00:51:29.960 But, you know, we'll keep our eyes focused.
00:51:31.840 Colin McMahon, you are in Germany the number one American I go to to get a reading on these things.
00:51:39.540 If folks want to check you out on social media to keep abreast with your analysis, where do they go?
00:51:45.760 i'm on x of colin fr for francis colin fr mcmahon
00:51:51.360 brilliant um thanks colin i hope we'll get you back
00:51:56.340 um again in uh soon to help uh unravel for us the the coalition talks that are taking place
00:52:06.840 in saxony and heart right now my thanks to liz and wendell at will america's voice and
00:52:12.980 Vittorio Santifranco for doing this show together.
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