Angela Merkel Slams Trump’s “Fascination” with Dictators Like Putin
Donald Trump has an obsession with total power, and America’s greatest democratic allies have taken notice.
In an interview with CNN published late Monday, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel recalled that her first impression of the MAGA leader was his “fascination with the sheer power” of authoritarian leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
“My impression always was that he dreamt of actually overriding maybe all those parliamentary bodies that he felt were in a way an encumbrance upon him, and that he wanted to decide matters on his own,” Merkel told CNN. “In a democracy—well, you cannot reconcile that with democratic values.”
The wide-ranging interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour covered Merkel’s upcoming memoir, Freedom, and her fears for liberal democracy as it comes “under pressure” from international threats.
“The way he spoke about Putin, the way he spoke about the North Korean (leader)—obviously apart from critical remarks he made—there was always a kind of fascination with the sheer power of what these people could do,” Merkel said.
In that vein, Trump has threatened to weaponize the Federal Communications Commission to punish media organizations that are critical of him, referred to his political opposition as the “enemy from within,” and claimed that the military should be deployed to help him retain power.
Merkel isn’t the only person to raise alarm bells over Trump’s disturbing veer toward authoritarianism. Ex-members of Trump’s inner circle, including his longest-serving chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, have condemned their former boss as a “fascist.” In a shocking October interview with The New York Times, Kelly warned that Trump had—on multiple occasions—praised Adolf Hitler, and reportedly said that he “needed the kind of generals that Hitler had,” which Kelly said Trump defined as “people who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.
“Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators—he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” Kelly said at the time.