Friedrich Merz can’t hear anything – glitch in the “heute journal”

There is a lot going on these days in the communication between (current) Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his possible successor Friedrich Merz. After the verbal exchange of blows with mutual attacks during the Bundestag debate before the vote of confidence, there was a problem with Merz’s response to Scholz in the ZDF “Heute Journal” – the line from the Mainz studio to Berlin did not work, the interview with the CDU leader in the The live broadcast was initially canceled.

In an interview with moderator Christian Sievers, Scholz had previously accused his opponent of saying “nonsense” in the Bundestag – North German for nonsense. The former mayor of Hamburg called the opposition leader “Fritze Merz” in a rather unfriendly manner.

Merz had a speech in parliament in the afternoon (read the debate in star-Liveblog according to) claims that the Chancellor behaved rudely towards another head of government in the European Council and that this was “an embarrassment to others”. When asked about this on Monday evening on ZDF, Scholz said literally: “Fritze Merz likes to tell nonsense. And that won’t be the only thing where he behaves like that. (…) He has shown it many times and will continue to do so in the future Election campaign often show the citizens.

After the recorded conversation, ZDF journalist Sievers went live to the CDU leader and welcomed him. Then on the screen: a silent Merz for seconds. The connection didn’t work on the next attempt either. “I’m not listening to you now,” Merz finally said. Sievers broke off the conversation and announced that he would try again during the program.

After the news overview, the connection was established – and the moderator was able to ask the obvious question, given the interaction between Merz and Scholz, whether one now had to prepare for this level in the election campaign. Merz let it be known that he forbade personal attacks from the Chancellor – and immediately followed up: “He constantly talks about respect, but the moment someone has a different opinion than him, his respect just stops.”

The interview could then be concluded sensibly, but one feeling remained: Given the current state of things, the election campaign is likely to still present some “communication problems” between the Chancellor and challenger.