All ears pricked, all eyes open, all antennas aligned: a few hours after Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) kicked out satirist Sebastian Hotz alias El Hotzo because he at least had no regrets about the death of Donald Trump in an X-Post. Talk shows are also on heightened alert when it comes to linguistic misconduct – especially when, like Markus Lanz on Tuesday evening, it concerns the failed assassination attempt on the American presidential candidate.
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To reassure you: everyone was fine. Elmar Theveßen, a ZDF correspondent, followed live from the Republican Party conference in Milwaukee anyway. Hubertus Heil, as Minister of Labor with the resting pulse of a moving dune, will be more responsible for questions about citizens’ money. Michael Bröcker also remained editor-in-chief of the commercial newsletter service “Table.Media“ Polite, which former Green Bundestag member Melis Sekmen had to prove again after he switched to the CDU.
Eulogy for Joe Biden
US President Joe Biden (right) and former US President Donald Trump participate in a presidential debate hosted by CNN.
Source: Gerald Herbert/AP/dpa
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That leaves the steaming chatterbox Markus Lanz as the breaking point of the communicative calm. But also from him: neither malice nor approval, let alone consolation in the face of an unparalleled terrorist act. What he could not resist, however, was an almost four-minute eulogy for Joe Biden, which Elmar Theveßen followed with a suada against Donald Trump’s debate culture, before Michael Bröcker tried to capture something of the two’s rising enthusiasm: “No one doubts his expertise and experience,” the American expert confirmed to the American president, “but the question must be asked whether one term in office is not enough”.
And that was it after 40 minutes of Theveßen monologues with Lanz inserts about Trump’s work and Biden’s contribution to topics that hardly anyone would have expected from a talk show three days after the most powerful attack of the digital age: the red-green-yellow budget concept Hubertus Heil, who was co-responsible, calmly described as “hard work” – “I don’t want to mislead you at all” – which even contains things “that I don’t really like”. Which started a funny competition.
“Why did you leave the field?”
Former Green MP Melis Sekmen speaks in a plenary session in the German Bundestag in September 2023.
Source: Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa
Because defected MP Sekmen should comment on this. ‘Much ado about nothing’, was her verdict on the budget of her ex-colleagues, before she managed to work the word ‘people’ eleven times by hand in her two minutes of speaking time in her criticism of her earlier work. Example: “These are subjects that concern people, so people ask themselves: am I a second-rate specialist? Have we lost so much feeling for people?”
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It is striking that Markus Lanz still managed to do what he usually finds more difficult than sitting still: he almost always let the only woman finish speaking. Just as he rarely or never interrupted the men in the chat room. Not Hubertus Heil, when he praised the blessings of his employment initiatives for several minutes. Not Michael Bröcker, when he accused him – “dear Mr. Heil” – of “every time you objectively and gently criticize the social democratic labor market policy, you immediately find yourself in the territory of post-truth opponents.” Nor Melis Sekmen, before it started. The last twenty minutes were about the most exciting subject of the moderately exciting evening.
Why, Lanz asks, “did you leave the field”? Namely, that of the Green Party, which she left on July 1 because of its supposedly transfer-friendly, anti-performance economics policies and joined the CDU seven days later. The answer: another barrage of ambiguous sentences full of “people” who “achieve something” and “should ultimately get more in return” than those who, in their eyes, don’t. Then the moderator went into attack mode. In fact, Markus Lanz fought a skirmish with the Sekmen in which he demonstrated his perseverance in a way that only Sahra Wagenknecht ever did.
Why doesn’t Sekmen give up her mandate?
Tenor: Switching parties within a legislative period is legitimate, but why doesn’t Melis Sekmen give up her mandate? Here too, the statement was applauded by people she was concerned about outside of orderly migration. But when Markus Lanz confronts the defector with her own past, even they can no longer help. When her Green municipal council colleague Thomas Hornung followed the same path at the local level at the end of 2017, she asked him to give up his mandate. Top research! Michael Bröcker answered her briefly with a reference to a free mandate that is only accountable to conscience.
But he also pointed out that Sekmen had been elected as a Green, not a Black. Hubertus Heil said smugly: “You were not directly elected,” but rather his SPD comrade Isabell Cadematoria, “who also supports start-ups, who also represents Mannheim, who also supports regulated migration.” The Labor Minister’s paunchy tone revealed two things: talk shows can provide insights that, for Lanz, even come about peacefully. Almost a little too peacefully.