Anne Will: "You legitimize anti-Semitic content," accuses Neubauer Laschet

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After Armin Laschet was nominated as candidate for chancellor of the Union, the polls from the CDU and CSU plummeted.

Above all, the Greens around their top candidate Annalena Baerbock can currently benefit from this.

Several opinion research institutes currently see them as the strongest force ahead of the Union.

The already delicate situation could worsen for Laschet after the Federal Constitutional Court recently declared parts of the federal government's climate protection law to be inadequate and overturned them.

The CDU leader has to provide answers in order not to leave the field to the Greens on this question.

On Sunday evening, Laschet met the militant climate activist and Greens member Luisa Neubauer in Anne Will's panel discussion on ARD.

Political scientist Ursula Münch and Zeit journalist Martin Machowecz also discussed the Union's chances in the federal elections under the title “From Corona crisis to climate policy - can the Union still hold office?”.

But the most hotly debated topic of the show became a completely different one.

Neubauer owes Will a proof

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Before it came to her core issue of climate, Neubauer argued with Laschet about Hans-Georg Maaßen - and raised serious allegations.

She strongly criticized the fact that the former President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is running for the Bundestag for the CDU in southern Thuringia.

As a West German woman, she did not want to “teach the so-called East”, she said politically correct as a disclaimer - but then demanded exactly that from Laschet.

"They legitimize racist, anti-Semitic, identity and incidentally also science-denying content, embodied by Hans-Georg Maaßen," asserted Neubauer excitedly.

"You should have clearly condemned that."

Laschet, who had previously distanced himself from Maaßen, went decidedly too far.

“He is not an anti-Semite and he does not distribute any anti-Semitic texts.

If he did, it would be a reason for exclusion from the party, ”Laschet protested.

He demanded evidence from Neubauer for this allegation, but this remained guilty on the show.

Will also didn’t ask, just announced that her editorial team would try to “prove it”.

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Laschet also referred to the democratic process that district associations put up the candidates.

“Those who are elected for it decide.

A federal chairman cannot say that I don't like him. ”In a people's party, democracy has to be endured.

Annalena Baerbock also does not determine who will be mayor of Tübingen, Laschet noted, referring to the dispute between the Greens and Boris Palmer.

Laschet tries to score with his experience

In the first quarter of the show, Will had previously devoted himself exclusively to Laschet. The fact that the currently compulsory questions about his CSU competitor Markus Söder are now tiring is mainly due to the fact that they have already been discussed exhaustively in the last week. "I am now in competition with Annalena Baerbock and Olaf Scholz, no longer with Markus Söder," Laschet tried to put a stop to Will's taunts early on and switch to election campaign mode.

Noticeably often, he tried to score points with his government experience as state father of North Rhine-Westphalia - probably his greatest trump card against Baerbock.

“After the pandemic, people will ask who they trust to cope with the consequences.

That will be huge, ”said Laschet.

“I will contribute what I have been doing for a number of years as the head of government in a large industrialized country.

We have good arguments. "

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Confronted with an excerpt when Angela Merkel criticized him at Anne Will's at the end of March, Laschet saw himself confirmed as the manager of the corona pandemic.

He countered that he had already implemented the current measures at this point.

"In this respect, the Chancellor is now at the point where I was during this broadcast."

"Don't believe in distributing ministerial posts," says Laschet

Laschet strictly rejected a personnel debate about a future cabinet.

“I don't believe in distributing ministerial posts,” he said.

“The voters don't think it's funny when everyone is talking about who is going to what.” The Union must explain to the voters why they want to win, he said when asked whether Friedrich Merz would become a minister.

Laschet emphasized again that he wanted to set up a team that represented the entire breadth of the Union, with men and women from many parts of Germany.

Merz is one of them because the CDU delegates have placed a lot of trust in him twice.

The CDU boss also underlined that he had ensured that the CDU and CSU did not present their election program in July, but in June.

It is a good sign that both Union parties wanted to present a joint election program this time.

Political scientist Münch puts her finger in the wound

The discussion picked up speed when the rest of the group was involved.

First Ursula Münch put her finger into the wound.

In view of the long term in office of the Union, she did not trust Lashte's stated will to modernize.

"Why hasn't that happened in the last 15 years?" She wanted to know.

“You are right, but topics such as wide-body expansion and bureaucratisation were there even before the pandemic.

Even as a well-disposed person one wonders why you haven't done that until now? "

“How should people trust you?” Asks Neubauer

Then again Neubauer and Laschet clashed violently - this time on the topic of climate. Above all, Neubauer criticized the government's failures in recent years. The coal phase-out was systematically delayed. “How should people trust you? Which party has ruled in the last 15 years? ”She wanted to know from Laschet.

He pointed out that in North Rhine-Westphalia, decisions by the previous red-green state government were primarily responsible for the fact that the open-cast mine continued to run in this form. “I took office in 2017 and have since reduced the numbers. We leave 1.1 billion tons of lignite in the ground, "said Laschet, who campaigned for a socially acceptable energy transition:" I want to make Germany a climate-neutral industrialized country. If a steel mill moves to another country, the world climate is not served. "

Martin Machowecz warned Laschet against entering into a competition with the Greens on climate issues and saw him in a mediating role. “The CDU must find a reconciliation in order to include people from the country who drive cars and want to go on vacation once a year. If we want to achieve climate protection, we have to have a broad movement in society. This is not only possible with hip, woken city dwellers, who think it's all great anyway. "