“You don’t live on this planet,” he retorted. “What you’re saying is a fairy tale.”
The clash came against the backdrop of a political firestorm over Merz’s decision to try to use votes from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to push tough immigration proposals through the Bundestag.
The move weakened Germany’s long-standing “firewall” against the far right, in place since World War II. Scholz seized on the controversy to warn that Merz was normalizing the far right. “I seriously fear you would consider a coalition with the AfD after the election,” he said.
Merz denied the charge that his conservatives have cooperated with the AfD, or would form a coalition with the party: “Let me say this once again, very clearly and explicitly, also to those who may wish otherwise: There will be no cooperation.”
Later in the debate, Merz faulted Scholz’s left-leaning government for enabling the AfD’s sharp rise in the polls, calling the party a “serious threat to our democracy,” and blaming the policies of Scholz, together with those of the Greens for allowing it to happen. “There has long been no majority for left-wing politics in this country,” he said.
With Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), polling in third place, far behind Merz’s leading conservatives, the debate represented one of Scholz’s last chances to fundamentally alter the outlines of the race. The two leaders clashed on economic and budget polices in particular, with Merz arguing for broad tax cuts and greater fiscal discipline, while Scholz depicted such policies as favoring the rich.
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