Transcribe your podcast
[00:00:00]

The tech billionaire, Elon Musk, has been interviewing the co-leader of Germany's AFD Party, Alice Wiedel. The interview went live a short time ago on the X social media platform. Wiedel's Anti-Immigration Party currently polling at about 19% in the run-up to Germany's elections next month. In a message he posted before the interview, Musk said, The traditional parties in Germany have utterly failed the people. The AFD is the only hope for Germany. Here's a clip from that interview.

[00:00:27]

Seven million people, but these are officially counted. So- Seven million people?

[00:00:32]

Wow. Okay.

[00:00:34]

So a lot. Seven million people of influx since 2015 officially counted. Then because the people, they just... Just another funny numbers. Our state allows people to throw away their passports before they cross our borders that are not protected and controlled. So 57 %, almost 60 % of the people coming into our country through an open border, they throw away their papers. Why do they do that? Because once entered our country, our funny country, with this funny immigration policy, they cannot be deported anymore.

[00:01:16]

Well, Musk had accused the EU of trying to stop the interview. The former French Commissioner, Thierry Breton, said Musk was lying like hell. But Musk's intervention in European politics is causing widespread consternation. Tonight, the French President, Emmanuel Macron is meeting with Sakeer Starmer at Cheques, where the subject is certain to come up. According to this morning's FT, Musk has privately discussed with allies in America how Sakeer could be removed as British Prime Minister before the next general election. With us tonight, Jackson James. He's a resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund in the US. Thank you for being with us. I suppose this was Alice Vidal's chance to introduce herself to a global audience, and on that score, it probably was a success. But do you think it will Do you think it will move the dial in the German election?

[00:02:05]

I don't really think so. I think that Alice Vidal and, quite frankly, Musk himself are not typical of the people that are actually congregating around the AFD. They're both very global in their backgrounds and in their thinking, I think. As a result, I suspect that they may change a few, but they're not going to have an impact because the issues that people are really concerned about are not much of what they covered, and that is the economy, the immigration issues, and to some extent, the problems of anxiety about the war next door.

[00:02:40]

Musk called Vida the leading candidate to run Germany in this interview, but as far as I was aware, all other parties in Germany have ruled out working with her. In fact, the leading candidate is the CDU centre-right leader, Frédéric Merz. Why is he not talking to him?

[00:02:55]

Well, that's a good question. But obviously, Alice Weidel is somebody who who is a a soulmate in terms of his thinking about libertarian politics, his ideological background. I think, quite frankly, they also have one thing in common is that they've both been in high financebusiness communities in their past careers. I think he just found somebody who's got a lot of common denominators, I guess.

[00:03:20]

There were some of the facts that she put out there which are questionable and need to be fact-checked, but two things that she did talk about, which will resonate with voters was energy, the Schultz decision to close down nuclear energy at a time when we were in a fuel crisis in Europe, and the level of taxes in Germany. That will resonate, will it not?

[00:03:44]

The energy prices are higher, and the basic issue is going to be how they're going to bring them down on the taxes issues. Yeah, Germany is a high-tax country. But I think that, again, what I said before, Christine, is that basically, I think most of the voters are going to focus on three things. It's going to be the economy, it's going to be the immigration issue, how to get it out of control, and it's going to be about that anxiety of that war next door in Ukraine. The sophistication of talking about nuclear energy and wind and solar, and by the way, at the end of the conversation, how long is it going to take for Mr. Musk to get to Mars? It was really well beyond, I think, what's the daily politics in Germany.

[00:04:27]

Just very quickly, we've got Sakea Starmer We're meeting with Emmanuel Macron tonight, and we're told that this topic will come up. Certainly, Elon Musk's recent interference in European politics. Why do you think EU governments are so timid at pushing back?

[00:04:41]

Well, I'm not sure. I think that basically there's a nervousness here, particularly in Germany, because the election is coming up next month, and so they're all concerned about how that's going to turn out. These kinds of high-level platform megaphones that Mr. Musk owns are something that unnerves them. But I think that the best way to respond to that is just simply by not being only indignant, but just be innovative about what their policies can be and should be, and get out there and sell them.

[00:05:14]

Dr. Jackson-james, good to talk to you tonight. Thank you for coming on. Thank you.