“Caren Miosga”: When the audience laughed at SPD leader Saskia Esken

Once that evening the audience laughed at Saskia Esken, once with her. First it’s about the pension system when moderator Caren Miosga throws at the SPD leader: “Everyone knows it’s no longer affordable!” Politicians have to be honest and announce increasing contributions.

Esken replies: “That’s not true.” Loud laughter from the audience, an annoyed Saskia Esken. “The audience doesn’t have to laugh!” If only a few more women worked full-time and a few skilled workers came to Germany, then Germany would no longer have a problem with pensions.

Really now? The Federal Republic is facing the biggest demographic crisis since its founding and the SPD is trying it out with confidence?

It is such naive promises that the head of the star-Politics department Veit Medick suggests in the program that the centrist parties are currently in a “winter wonderland”. The journalist sits opposite Esken and Saxony-Anhalt’s Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff (CDU), two who apparently don’t want to demand anything more from the voters six weeks before the federal election. Haseloff speaks of tax cuts and “economic growth at astronomical levels”, Esken of secure pensions. “In these times of predators, nothing is expected of anyone? That can’t be right!” Apart from Medick, others in the studio can’t quite believe this, as the laughter from the audience suggests.

Reiner Haseloff is not just sitting in the group this evening to argue as his CDU counterpart with Esken about the debt brake, the top tax rate and – at this point it gets most heated – network fees. But also because an event in his state once again shook the trust of many citizens in the state: the attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg a good three weeks ago.

On the evening of the attack, one could be happy that the Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt was called Reiner Haseloff. In the hours after the attack, he found the right tone, showed sympathy and promised clarification: “We all have to process this first and draw conclusions,” he said in the Tagesthemen. His gaze lowered, the corners of his mouth as well – the shock of this father of the country was real.

With Caren Miosga he shines through again, this father of the country, when he says about the attack: “We couldn’t cope with that. We won’t be able to cope with it for a long time.” The only question is: is concern still enough three weeks later? Or should we not start talking about political consequences? Haseloff admits that this was a “state failure,” but quickly emphasizes that it is now not about “individual local responsibility,” but about the “Germany system.”

Friends of Taleb A. also contacted the Saxony-Anhalt police with information. Why these obviously weren’t edited is unclear. Caren Miosga doesn’t ask any more questions, Saskia Esken only complains that the CDU blocked a traffic light security package in the Federal Council. But it was about biometric surveillance; the suggestions contained therein would not have prevented the attack.

However, neither did Friedrich Merz’s proposal after the crime: the possibility must be created to revoke German citizenship from dual nationals if they commit a crime, demanded the candidate for chancellor.

Why is Merz making this suggestion, Miosga wants to know, if the perpetrator in Magdeburg did not have German citizenship at all? “A diversionary tactic,” judges journalist Medick, because Merz lacked other solutions. Haseloff weighs it down: He thinks it is wrong that the traffic light made access to citizenship easier. He does not say whether he would also revoke the citizenship of criminals.

The show on Sunday evening was restless. Miosga literally rushed through the parties’ election programs, and it seems to be the symptom of an election campaign that has not yet found its central themes. So if there are no factual issues that will drive this election campaign, then perhaps the candidates for chancellor? “I don’t believe that,” says Medick. The candidates are “not real movers and shakers”.

When Saskia Esken answers, laughter echoes from the audience for the second time: “Olaf Scholz is a real fighter,” she says – and then has to smile herself. “Yes, yes, you’re laughing, but it’s really true!” she insists. It would only be good for the SPD if voters soon got to know something about Scholz’s fighter type – 77 percent are dissatisfied with him as chancellor. No other candidate is as unpopular. He still has six weeks.