In the political talk at Maischberger (ARD), the guests debate, among other things, easing in the corona pandemic. Karl Lauterbach raises allegations against Springer.
Berlin – In the shadow of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the federal-state summit with the prime ministers of the states with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) took place yesterday, Wednesday. Reason enough for Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) to answer questions from ARD talk show host Sandra Maischberger after it was announced on Wednesday that the heads of the federal states and the chancellor had agreed on a three-stage plan to relax the measures to contain the corona pandemic had been able to agree.
In addition to Lauterbach, the former US Ambassador John Kornblum and defense politician Sevim Dağdelen (Die LINKE) are in the studio of “Maischberger. The week”. The talk will be commented on by the editor-in-chief of “Welt am Sonntag”, Dagmar Rosenfeld, Stephan Stuchlik from the ARD capital studio, and the author and television producer Hubertus Meyer-Burckhardt.
After the Corona summit: “Always the same theatre” – a journalist blames the Maischberger (ARD) government
First, Maischberger and her three commenting guests will address the latest developments in Germany. Stephan Stuchlik is sobered by the almost traditional disengagement of individual prime ministers from the decisions of the conference before and after the actual meetings. “It’s very often always the same theatre. One has a choice, the other has bad poll numbers. I am now showing signs of professional fatigue,” summarizes the journalist and immediately introduces the neologism of “Scholzism” on the first controversial issue, compulsory vaccination, according to which the Chancellor always says: “We do everything that is necessary. We have everything we need there.”
In contrast to the past few weeks, the Chancellor clearly positioned himself in favor of compulsory vaccination yesterday. In the commenting group, Hubertus Meyer-Burckhardt takes on the role of the vaccination supporter with pathetic words: “As a citizen, I owe it to my other fellow citizens”. He considers corona contact restrictions to be “purely common sense”.
Against him, the WamS boss Rosenfeld castigates a possible vaccination requirement in view of unknown upcoming corona variants as not expedient and takes the position: “If the government were convinced of this, they would have introduced their own draft law on vaccination requirements. We don’t know how massive the next corona wave will be and whether the vaccines will be able to work. I think compulsory vaccination is wrong.”
Maischberger (ARD): “Campaign journalism” – Lauterbach with accusations against Springer-Press
In the context of this area of conflict, Maischberger talks to Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach, the “face of the pandemic” (Maischberger), about worst-case scenarios and the concept of “freedom day”. Lauterbach rejects the latter designation because people are still at risk in four weeks.
“The world will not be the same after March 20 as it was before the pandemic,” warns the Health Minister, defending himself against the accusation that he only ever communicates the worst-case scenarios: “I’m trying to describe things as they can develop from a realistic point of view. I’m not trying to spread any horror scenarios,” argues Lauterbach and goes on to counterattack: “The Springer press, the BILD newspaper and some CDU MPs portray me as a panic minister. From my point of view, this is campaign journalism.”
The second part of the program should then revolve around the Ukraine conflict. But before the panel discussion can turn to the subject, Dagmar Rosenfeld reflexively denies herself the accusation of campaign journalism against Lauterbach and then does what the Springer press does all too often: criticize the government with pithy words when Rosenfeld, in view of the measure, that Annalena Baerbock appoints Jennifer Morgan, the head of Greenpeace International, as climate state secretary, tells stories about “untamed climate activism” that “does not shy away from criminal offenses”, and threatens to become “German reasons of state”.
Ukraine crisis at Maischberger (ARD): US ambassador calls democracy a “major threat to Russia”
Hubertus Meyer-Burckhardt, on the other hand, considers the change of generations in the traffic light government to be fundamentally successful. And Stephan Stuchlik then thankfully leads on to the last topic of the evening, the Ukraine crisis, in a journalistically well-founded manner: “With Corona, people thought the new government would muddle through. During the Ukraine crisis, one wondered where Olaf Scholz was.” And Stuchlik states that Scholz has now felt compelled to clearly name Russia as the aggressor in the foreign policy situation. Former US Ambassador John Kornblum put the situation as Putin trying to “get off his high horse” and all sides are now trying to retract their positions.
Left-wing politician Sevim Dağdelen puts the current situation in such a way that Ukraine’s NATO membership is now off the table and French President Macron and Chancellor Scholz are now ready to repeat a veto against Ukraine’s NATO membership after 2008. In particular, Dağdelen shoots at the American secret service, the CIA: “With the false announcement that Russia would invade Ukraine at 3 a.m. yesterday, the CIA has made itself implausible for all time.” and NATO was still welcomed in Russia in the 1990s as the power that liberated communism. “The eastward expansion of NATO was not an issue at the time,” said Kornblum. This only happened in the following years due to German security interests and Putin sees himself threatened by this.
Foreign politician Dağdelen describes this as “a big mistake” in wanting to expand NATO to Russia’s borders and criticizes the fact that one cannot understand that Russia’s security interests are threatened. Kornblum replies that non-military factors are decisive for the threat situation in Eastern Europe. For him it is clear: “The great threat to Russia is democracy”. Kornblum concludes with strong words that Putin waged war against his own people for twenty years. The only thing he agreed with Dağdelen that evening was that they hope that the confrontation can now be resolved through diplomatic channels. (Moritz Post)
