Journalist jokes with Markus Lanz on ZDF: Söder or Laschet – “Opportunist” or “Lusche”?

The dispute at the Union is also an issue for Markus Lanz on ZDF. Prime Minister Weil is unceremoniously unloaded, the Union has to take it.

Hamburg-Altona – Sometimes a veteran TV format like Markus Lanz on ZDF is actually still good for one or two surprises. For the first time in more than a year, if you disregard the interview by the German-Italian presenter with ex-US President Barack Obama, Corona was not the focus of the talk show.

The permanent topic was actually intended, on which Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) also addressed himself in the studio at the Phoenixhof in Hamburg-Altona, especially with regard to the controversial redesign of the Infection Protection Act (IfSG), the dispute between the federal and state governments about it and his express your own course. The SPD politician was unceremoniously unloaded.

Markus Lanz (ZDF): Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) is unloaded

While Markus Lanz simply suppressed this at the beginning of the program, Weil tweeted beforehand: “Don’t be surprised: contrary to what was announced, I won’t be a guest on Markus Lanz’s talk show tonight. The focus of the program has been changed for current reasons – it now deals with the question of the Union Chancellor candidate. “

It is a bit embarrassing for ZDF when a guest at Markus Lanz has to provide the explanation for why they do without him. Even worse: on the website of the ZDF media library, after the show was first broadcast, Weil is still listed as a participant below the embedded video.

Markus Lanz: Heated discussion among the guests on ZDF

Regardless of this faux pas, we come to the second surprise on ZDF late on Tuesday evening: Markus Lanz, political scientist Prof. Ursula Münch (director of the Academy for Political Education) and journalist Eva Quadbeck, has also been among the studio guests for what felt like an eternity (Deputy Editor-in-Chief of “RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland”), Robin Alexander (Deputy Editor-in-Chief “Die Welt”) and Heiner Bremer (n-tv policy expert) with the politicians Markus Blume (CSU General Secretary) and Roderich Kiesewetter (Member of the Bundestag CDU) the faction-internal minister-president duel between Armin Laschet (CDU, North Rhine-Westphalia) and Markus Söder (CSU, Bavaria) really hotly discussed! Markus Lanz presented himself well prepared and aggressive, so that the entertainment factor was not neglected either.

Right at the beginning, Markus Lanz asks Markus Blume straight away *: “How do you like the chaos that you and Markus Söder created?” At first he seems a bit confused, but is cool: “I’m satisfied … There was no chaos at all. “It was an honest discussion of“ two outstanding candidates ”in the parliamentary group meeting, and there was no question of an assumed“ brutal power struggle ”.

Markus Lanz (ZDF): Laschet’s personality values are “devastating”

Many see this, not just Markus Lanz and the journalists present, but differently, said Laschet, who appealed for unity and unity, when visiting the CDU / CSU parliamentary group in the direction of Söder during the day: “We don’t need a one-man show,” whereupon the latter replied that the Union needed the “best possible line-up to be successful – not just the most pleasant” to win an election in this phase. Memories of the 1979 election campaign are awakened, when CDU leader Franz Josef Strauss prevailed against his CDU rival Ernst Albrecht as the Union’s candidate for chancellor, but with his polarizing style he had no chance of winning the social-liberal coalition under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (SPD) disempower.

Markus Lanz inquires on ZDF whether Blume is not simply glossing over Laschet and Söder’s “pulling together”. In the case of the Greens and their candidate for Chancellor to be determined between Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, no one would speak of “brutalities”, evades the member of the Bavarian State Parliament, who is visibly uncomfortable with the “great amusement” mentioned by Markus Lanz in the studio.

Markus Lanz (ZDF): Söder should “not be devalued”

Eva Quadbeck adds and says Söder has “gambled away”: “The Union is on the same slide towards the abyss as the SPD!” That would alienate voters. She quotes a CDU politician who wants to remain anonymous. For him, Söder’s pithy demeanor was nefarious: “This is how it started with Trump.” However, Laschet’s personality values in surveys are again “devastating”. For Prof. Ursula Münch, in her analysis, Söder could be doomed if he “leads an election campaign that is too lax”. Markus Lanz jokes: “Be careful! Word games are in the air … “

The former general staff officer Roderich Kiesewetter, as a CDU politician from the Aalen-Heidenheim constituency, has positioned himself on the question of Armin Laschet’s candidacy for chancellor, but does not want to “devalue” Söder. He sees Laschet in the tradition of the former Federal President Johannes Rau (SPD), who stood for “reconciling instead of dividing”. Of 38 CDU parliamentary group colleagues from Baden-Württemberg, he is only one of four who rely on Laschet, Markus Lanz knows: “You are trying to make the weather nice here.” This quick-witted: “First of all, my name is ‘Kiesewetter’, not ‘nice weather’. ”For him, it is important not to look at surveys at short notice.

Talk with Markus Lanz (ZDF): Söder as an “alternative to Merkel”

In addition: “Not everyone has to comment.” He did it, but of the 38 colleagues mentioned, there were only 20 in total. The meanwhile 79-year-old Heiner Bremer, himself a former FDP politician and still respected for the “RTL Nachtjournal” he developed, which he also moderated from 1993 to 2004, sees the CDU debate as “dishonest” (“The voter will notice that! “). For him, Söder could withdraw from the application as candidate for chancellor without losing face, while for Laschet it would be a “personal defeat”.

That is why he calls on Blume and Kiesewetter, whose credo “We listen to the people or the party base” is typical CDU / CSU populism: “Do a member survey!” Alexander Robin does not buy from Blume and Kiesewetter either the applications from Laschet and Söder to the CDU / CSU parliamentary group were a “great democratic show”. He refers to the statement of a Union member, without naming his or her name: “Solve it at the Mikado or Russian Roulette!” Söder was “an alternative to Merkel all his life”, who always only “followed the spirit of the times”, and for a long time the “most unpopular Prime Minister” until he was generally recognized in his role as the “Corona squire of the Federal Chancellor”.

Markus Lanz is smug: “You have switched from the dark side of power to the light”

At Markus Lanz (ZDF), an excerpt is shown in which Söder says: “I didn’t use surveys beforehand. (…). In the second lockdown, we saved 1,000 lives in the forecast. Armin Laschet and I have a good relationship. “The” populist lunge, “which Lanz attributes to the right-wing Söder, because surveys are now more important than they were in February,” firmly rejects “on behalf of Blume:” 2018 was not about Surveys, but course questions. ”At least he admits; “The dispute between the CDU and CSU was a mistake.” Just last week, Söder spoke to Markus Lanz (ZDF) about the German Corona strategy.

“2021 is about something different: What indicator do we have among the people?” Said Blume. Markus Lanz smugly: “You have switched from the dark side of power to the light…” While three years ago Söder still preferred the slogan “crucifixes instead of headscarves”, he would now emphasize that nobody should be discriminated against on the basis of their skin color. It is still missing that he would “put on the beekeeping hat”. What part of Angela Merkel’s legacy does Markus Söder really stand for? “Every time has its answers.”, Says Blume, saying a lot and at the same time nothing, only to praise the “belief in the forces of the social market economy”. Heiner Bremer is repugnant to this “usefulness thinking”.

Eva Quadbeck goes one better with Markus Lanz (ZDF): “With Söder you don’t know: Who is the real Söder? If he wants something, he gets this tunnel vision. My imagination is not enough how to fix it up in the next five months to make politics together. “On the other hand, Blume becomes passionate:” Every day the same Markus Söder stands in front of me who – it sounds a bit pathetic – the fire feels. As CSU General Secretary, I can probably see it through my rose-colored glasses. “Lanz remains poisonous:” Rather dark black with green speckles. How are you doing with that, Mr Kiesewetter? ”He goes back a long way:“ This is not about short-term strategic considerations in front of cameras. We have to do everything we can to ensure that Europe comes out of the crisis together. ”Then he advertises Laschet, who for him stands for“ reliability and trust ”:“ He does not polarize. He addresses deficiencies, but does not hurt. ”First everyone in this country would have to be vaccinated, then one could look for the advantage for Germany in other questions in a European comparison.

Talk with Markus Lanz: “What kind of conversation is that?”

“Mr. Kiesewetter, you did not even begin to answer my question,” warned Markus Lanz on ZDF. “What kind of conversation is that?” He then exclaims, “I asked you whether it was a misunderstanding.” Kiesewetter in a philosophical ardor, does not even think about getting into the Söder versus Laschet debate again. Much more important be to him, “the big questions”. But Lanz does not give up: “Was everything fair, everything okay, what Söder did?” On Sunday evening you expected something else, says Kiesewetter.

“So they say that a different signal was expected from Sunday,” Lanz repeats, meaning that Söder first spoke about a decision for Laschet, if it should come about, unconditionally accepting a decision for Laschet, Tuesday through his words and his behavior but gave a different impression. Journalists ask, politicians answer – whatever they want. More than that one of the two candidates will withdraw in the end, cannot be inferred from Blume and Kiesewetter on that evening. So there will be no “dual leadership, where everyone gets along so well” (Lanz). Not even to a “classic duel on the meadow, where one shoots the other to death,” as Bremer remarks with black humor. However, the Methuselah did not expect among the journalists in the humorous group that he would be “completely fooled”.

Markus Lanz (ZDF): “You are an opportunist!” – “And you are a sneak!”

Markus Lanz does not give up: 54-year-old Söder, who “drives his big brother CDU in front of him as if there is no tomorrow”, kicks 60-year-old Laschet in the shins when he says that there is a generation between them would lie. For Kiesewetter, a lashing device “cannot be provoked”. “In contrast to Merkel, he does not think from afterwards,” says the long reluctant political scientist Münch zu Söder. “Thinking afterwards” is “always better”. “Do we have a luxury problem?” Lanz turns to Robin for the last time.

This sarcastic to the K question: “’You are an opportunist!’ – ‘And you are a snoop!’ Can be heard today from Markus Lanz and tomorrow in the ‘Welt’.” Bremer is rightly disappointed that despite the announcement about the weaknesses of the tightened infection protection law with its curfews at incidences over 100, which, according to FDP federal chairman Christian Lindner, also insanely affected married, vaccinated couples, would not be discussed at all. “We’ll talk about that tomorrow,” said Markus Lanz on ZDF. “Bet that ..?” The smart South Tyrolean would not choose either Söder or Laschet as Chancellor? (Marc Hairapetian) * 24hamburg.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.