In minute ten of the Triell, a word is uttered for the first time that will be heard more often this evening: dishonest.

The SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz had just stated that he was not categorically ruling out a coalition with the Left Party, but that he reaffirmed his red lines: commitment to NATO, to a strong EU.

"Everyone who knows me knows what they're getting," assures Scholz.

"That is a little dishonest to say, that is decided by the citizens," says Armin Laschet, the Union's candidate for chancellor.

If there is an arithmetical majority, the SPD will form a coalition with the left.

Helene Bubrowski

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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Laschet had warmed up in the past few days.

The CDU politician, who otherwise sees himself as a reconciler and a man of compromise, recently handed out a lot against the SPD, which in surveys is a few percentage points ahead of the Union.

At the CSU party congress on the weekend, he accused the SPD of having "always been on the wrong side" in all post-war economic and financial policy decisions.

Scholz criticized the judiciary's approach

On Sunday evening in the Triell on ARD and ZDF, Laschet went straight to the next after the first accusation of dishonesty: He spoke about the searches in the Federal Ministry of Finance last week and accused Scholz of not supervising a special unit to combat money laundering well enough to have exercised.

"If my finance minister worked like you, we would have a serious problem," said Laschet, adding that Scholz had spoken disparagingly about the judiciary.

After the searches, Scholz had said that the public prosecutor could have asked the questions in writing.

In the Triell, Scholz wedges back: “Mr. Laschet, you have to be accused of that, very clearly”, the CDU politician had “twisted” things and “deliberately” gave the wrong impression that the investigation was being conducted against the Federal Ministry of Finance.

"You give the impression that you have nothing to do with the authority in Cologne," says Laschet, but confuses the fact that Scholz 'ministry does not exercise the technical supervision, but only the legal supervision of the special unit.

The Union Chancellor candidate throws in the rhetorical question of whether the public prosecutor's office had been in his house, which Scholz had to affirm.

He tried to free himself from the defensive by referring to the reforms to make the money laundering unit more powerful.

From the searches it went on to Cum-ex and Wirecard, two further problems that Scholz has been carrying around for a long time, but which so far hardly seem to harm him.

Scholz did not go into the details here, but countered, so that Laschet spread "untruths" here too.

Baerbock initially remains in the background

Annalena Baerbock, the Greens' candidate for chancellor, hardly played an active role in this first phase. She appears more like a third moderator and also has a special question for Olaf Scholz, namely whether he is prepared to provide the Bundestag with a certain protocol in the fight against money laundering. But the moderators ignore this question and move on to the next topic.

When it comes to digitization, corona policy, climate change, Baerbock becomes a little more aggressive, but then she points out that the clock that measures the speaking time of the candidates continues to run at Scholz even though the moderators are speaking. The deputy party chairman Ricarda Lang tries on Twitter to correct the impression that this is really a duel: “Laschet and Scholz are arguing. Baerbock talks about the future. ”In the polls, the appearance earns Baerbock sympathy points, but it doesn't look exactly like a chancellor.

For Laschet it becomes uncomfortable again when it comes to Hans-Georg Maaßen, the controversial former head of the constitutional protection, who is running as a direct candidate for the CDU in southern Thuringia. Wouldn't he also vote for Maaßen, as Karin Prien, the Schleswig-Holstein minister in Laschet's future team, had indicated? Laschet replies that he does not answer "dignity" questions, but makes it clear that Prien will stay on the team. Maassen had to stick to the course that he set as party chairman. Laschet uses the opportunity here to clearly demarcate himself to the right: the firewall to the right, there will be no coalition with the AfD, no tolerance, no talks.