‘Trump was fascinated by Putin’
From next week, the political memoirs of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel (70) will hit the shelves. However, German newspaper ‘Die Zeit’ has already managed to get hold of a copy of Merkel's book, and published some remarkable passages.
For 16 years, Merkel was Chancellor of Germany and during that period from 2005 to 2021, she spoke several times with Donald Trump. According to Merkel, the Republican who will soon move back to the White House spoke each time on an ‘emotional level’ while she herself kept it ‘factual’. She therefore found it a real challenge to deal with him.
Besides, according to the former chancellor, Trump did not believe in cooperation. ‘He was convinced that all countries were competitors of each other, where the success of one meant the failure of the other. He did not believe that the prosperity of all countries could be increased through cooperation.’
During a meeting in March 2017, Trump was suddenly very interested in Merkel's opinion of Russian President Vladimir Putin. ‘It was very clear that he was fascinated by the Russian president,’ she writes. ‘And also in the years that followed, I had the impression that politicians with autocratic and dictatorial traits really fascinated him.’
Not long ago, by the way, it became known that Trump had called Putin at least seven times since leaving the White House in 2021.
(SR for Tagtik/Source: Die Zeit/Illustration picture by kremlin_ru via WikiCommons licensed under the creative commons attribution 4.0 license)