Merz Plans Trump Call While Doubling Down on MAGA Criticism

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has once again distanced himself from Donald Trump’s political base, while indicating he plans to continue engaging with the US president.

“The MAGA movement is not our movement,” he said at an election event in Bad Dürkheim in Rhineland-Palatinate last night. “And the way they treat culture and the media, the way they interact with one another, is not our idea of democracy. We have a different vision.”