SPEZIAL Richard Grenell - Das ganze Interview

Sprecher 1: Table Today mit Michael Bröker und Helene Bubrowski.

Sprecher 2: Hallo und herzlich willkommen zu dieser Sonderausgabe von Table Today, einem wirklich besonderen Tag, denn wir haben einen Mann zu Gast, der ungern Interviews gibt. In deutschen Medien, aber auch in amerikanischen Medien eher selten zu Hause ist. Es ist Richard Grinnell, einer der umstrittensten Diplomaten, die hier in Deutschland jemals gearbeitet haben. Er war von 2018 bis 2020 US-Botschafter in Deutschland, bevor er nationaler Geheimdienstkoordinator in der Administration Trump wurde. Nun gilt er als wahrscheinlicher möglicher Außenminister in einem möglichen Kabinett Trump. Und alleine deswegen sollten wir mit diesem Menschen, der Deutschland ganz gut kennt, aber Donald Trump noch viel besser, dringend reden. Der FDP-Vize Wolfgang Kubicki wollte ihn damals aus Deutschland am liebsten ausweisen. Er nannte ihn einen Hochkommissar einer Besatzungsmacht. Wolfgang Ischinger dagegen, der frühere Chef der Sicherheitskonferenz, verlangte sogar seine Präsenz in Berlin. Man brauche doch einen aktiven Botschafter der Vereinigten Staaten in Berlin. Richard Grinnell war eben umstritten. Er war so etwas wie der Kirmes-Boxer unter den Diplomaten. Immer offenes Visier, notfalls auch mal mit verbaler Härte, wenn es um die Interessen Amerikas ging. Er mokierte sich über die Russland-Politik Deutschlands und das Iran-Abkommen. Er kritisierte die viel zu geringen Verteidigungsausgaben und drohte mit dem Abzug der US-Soldaten. Wie gesagt, Grinnell war un... Aber manches, was er damals forderte und kritisierte, ist heute auch in der politischen Mitte allgemeingut. Vielleicht hatte er doch nicht immer Unrecht. Jedenfalls ist er jetzt einer der wichtigsten Vertrauten von Donald Trump. Hier das vollständige, ungekürzte Gespräch in englischer Sprache mit Richard Grinnell vom vergangenen Dienstag. Denn es lohnt sich, glaublich, diesem Mann in der Originalsprache zuzuhören. Ungekürzt, uncut sozusagen, Richard Grinnell. Viel Vergnügen.

Sprecher 3: Ich bin manchmal ein bisschen zu ehrlich, aber ganz im Ernst, ich mag es einfach klar, ohne Überraschungen. Genau deshalb bin ich bei Frank, dem einfach Mobilfunkanbieter. App runterladen, Tarif bestellen, fertig. 20 GB für 10 Euro. In bester D-Netz-Qualität. Monatlich kündbar, keine versteckten Kosten. Und das Beste ist Frank for Friends. Ich schicke einfach meinen Code an meine FreundInnen. Und jedes Mal, wenn jemand darüber startet, kriegen wir alle dauerhaft extra Datenvolumen. Kein Drama, keine Geheimnisse. Also, probier's mit Frank. Ist ehrlich einfacher.

Sprecher 2: Good morning. Welcome on the show, Ambassador Rick Grinnell in Los Angeles.

Sprecher 4: Thanks for having me, Michael. It's good to be with you.

Sprecher 2: Hi. Donald Trump called you in an official statement his envoy. What exactly does an envoy do? What does that mean?

Sprecher 4: Well, first of all, let me correct you, because that was really one of those fake news things. What President Trump was talking about was my time in Serbia and Kosovo, where my title was presidential envoy. He was referring to what was going on then. And somehow, you know, you've got all these crazy legacy media who just take that moment and subscribe it to something else, like he was talking about a larger issue. He was literally referring to my time as the presidential envoy for Kosovo and Serbia because the Kosovo-Serbia issue had popped up.

Sprecher 2: Ah, okay. He was talking about back then, 2020, when you actually...

Sprecher 4: When he said it, he was referring to a statement about Kosovo and Serbia. He said, my envoy, which he meant the presidential envoy. That's my former title. It's like saying my ambassador or my former DNI.

Sprecher 2: All right, good that we clarify this. So what's your mission now? I mean, you'd still travel a lot. You went to Guatemala, you were at the Balkans still, and you wanted to come to Germany. So what's your mission right now?

Sprecher 4: Well, let me also correct the record on that kind of Washington Post Guardian story. Let me just say this. This is important. The Washington Post reporter, her name was Beth Reinhart. And Beth, think about this, and I hope that our listeners think about this. She knew, because I told her, that I met with left-wing politicians around the world. Not just what she characterized as right-wing, but I met with some far-lefties and some socialists, too. What would you say if you knew that she knew that and didn't report that? And what she also knew and didn't report was that when I go and travel, I'm in the private sector now and I'm traveling as a private sector person. I offer the embassy, the American embassy where I travel. To come into the meetings or get briefed if they don't want to come into the meetings. I actually have met with left-wing politicians and sitting right next to me is the charge or the ambassador. I go to the embassy afterwards and I brief them. Now, Compare that to when I was U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Michael. How many times did Democrats come through Germany and meet with Merkel? John Kerry did it a lot. A whole bunch of other people did it a lot. They never coordinated with the embassy. They didn't talk to me. They didn't coordinate with me. They slipped in. They met with Merkel and they left. And the legacy media didn't scream and holler about that. But for me, the problem is just this Washington. Post reporter, and then the Guardian just regurgitates what the Washington Post said. They say, oh, we only met with right wing politicians. I met with left wing and socialists, too. Why would they leave out? My meetings with the left-wing politicians and the socialists and just simply say he's only met with right-wingers. Why? Because they have a narrative. What I think is that if you're watching the news and if you're a consumer of news, you have an obligation to question everything. Question this interview. Go and check. And don't just take my word for it. But you have to be consistent and do that with everybody. Because right now, news is all about business and clicks and money. It's not about journalism.

Sprecher 2: All right. We do business with journalism, but we don't need clicks. We just need listeners and a strong nonpartisan agenda here at Table Media.

Sprecher 4: I would say bipartisan. Don't you want like all sides, not nonpartisan? Yeah, bipartisan. Oh, yeah.

Sprecher 2: Let's call it bipartisan. Yeah, definitely. I mean. I experienced an ambassador, Rick Grinnell, who strongly supposed and promoted conservatives in Europe. That's true. Because you are one, right?

Sprecher 4: Yeah, yeah. Look, to be a consistent conservative just simply means that you want personal responsibility and you want a smaller government. You don't want government telling people what to do. I reject socialism and big government programs. I want to determine my own life, whether it's in my bedroom or in my... pocketbook. I want government to stay out and let me determine what's best.

Sprecher 2: That's a libertarian way of thinking, right?

Sprecher 4: Well, maybe, maybe.

Sprecher 2: Yeah, for the German way of policy and politics, it's far right because it's so libertarian that we put it in our agenda, we put it far right.

Sprecher 4: Yeah. Am I allowed to say that your FDP needs to get a little more aggressive about those policies?

Sprecher 2: The FDP is at 3% or 4% in the polls right now, so they have other problems than this, I guess.

Sprecher 4: I know, but they have the ability to articulate a message that is just like, mind your own business and let people deal with their own lives and create liberties and create their own life. I mean, people love that argument. I think the FDP needs to get much more aggressive about that because, to be honest, in America, that argument works for the Republicans.

Sprecher 2: True. But let me just come back to this piece in The Washington Post or different pieces on you, Rick Grinnell. Is it at least true that you're still a very important aide for Donald Trump and you are serving on his policy and on his agenda for the foreign policy side of his views?

Sprecher 4: No, no, look, I love President Trump. I talk to him regularly. I'm working very hard to get him elected. I think, you know, when you have a president who produced zero wars and now we see Joe Biden has produced three wars, the American people really benefit from Donald Trump. So I'm working hard to elect Donald Trump. But we don't have any formal system like that. He was the president. He knows his policies. We will respond if he asks questions or wants advice, but that's extremely rare because right now in America, the campaign is really about media, messaging, events, and sadly, money.

Sprecher 2: Well, let's talk about someone who really produced a war, and that's Putin. That's the Russian President Putin who attacked Ukraine two years ago. And we see that the attacker makes up more ground every day, actually. And President Zelensky said without the $60 billion who are blocked in the U.S. Congress, they might get defeated by the Russian. Isn't that something that you as a person of the land of the free should really criticize in order to let the freedom fighters in the Ukraine help and don't let them down by the Russians?

Sprecher 4: Let's make no mistake. Putin is a huge problem. We need to make sure that we stop his offense. He is on the offense and it's a real problem. In America, though, we say Putin is a problem, but China is a crisis. So I'd love to be able to talk about China. That's a real crisis. But let's go back for a second, Michael. You know me as somebody who is a really nice guy, but also a truth teller. I need to be able to give some context to what my friend, the German. Porter is giving context to Ukraine and Russia. Let's go back to the very unpopular issue that I articulated when I was in Germany, and I got a lot of flack for. The German government attacked me. The German media constantly attacked me. One of the three issues that I was attacked constantly on was the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Sprecher 2: Absolutely true.

Sprecher 4: We believed that the Germans were making a grave mistake. They were over-calculating their relationship with Russia. We believed they were feeding the beast. We believed that Merkel was wrong to get rid of all the other alternative energy forms and then just simply say, oh, well, we're going to build this pipeline with Russia. And then she would say to us, you don't understand the German-Russian relationship. We can control Russia. We have a long history. It's different than America. And so we want this pipeline. And Donald Trump and I constantly said, no, we're going to sanction the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and you shouldn't build it. And the German establishment and the Merkel government and the German media all took her side. There needs to be a reckoning with the mistakes of what happened there. It was crucial. Well, Merkel was lobbying Trump and the Republicans to have some sort of a detente and get rid of it. rid of the sanctions, we were firm in saying, no, we're not going to do that. However, when Joe Biden came into office, Chancellor Merkel went to Joe Biden and the Democrats and said, hey, we're your ally. Can't you just get along with us? Can you drop the sanctions on the pipeline? This is what your ally wants. Don't be belligerent towards your allies. Don't be mean to your allies. Go along with your allies. Joe Biden did that. He acquiesced to Chancellor Merkel. He said, OK, we will drop the sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 Russian Putin pipeline. And that's exactly what the Democrats in the Senate did. I believe that that was the beginning of Putin's calculus to go back to the days of invading under the Obama-Biden-Merkel regime. He did not do it under Donald Trump because we sanctioned them. Now, this is an argument that you won't hear from most of the reporters in Germany or in America because they all like the narrative that's the opposite. But the reality is we did not have a war in Europe under Donald Trump. And if Donald Trump is elected president again, which I believe he will be, we're going to go back to not having wars like in Israel, like in Ukraine, like in Yemen, like in Syria, and all of the other areas where we're seeing war break out. I think this is a real problem. And I think that the German media need to come clean and say,

Sprecher 1: We were wrong.

Sprecher 2: I give you that point. We were kind of naive on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the media. Some politicians were, by the way, opposing the pipeline here in Germany, CDU and Norbert Röttgen, by the way, or other European politicians. So there's a different setting here. But yes, most of the media were not criticizing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline enough. That's correct.

Sprecher 4: Is that an apology to Rick Grinnell and Donald Trump?

Sprecher 2: I'm saying we were wrong. I'm saying we were wrong on this issue. But still, we have the aggression who was called by Trump as smart and genius. The name is Vladimir Putin, not Joe Biden. He led the troops to Ukraine. And now it's President Zelensky saying, I need this American money. I need the military support. Otherwise, there's going to be a huge defeat. So let's talk about this. Why is the U.S. Congress blocking this very urgent money?

Sprecher 4: Well, first of all, I would ask you, do you know how much money that the American people have given to Ukraine so far?

Sprecher 2: More than anyone else. I know that.

Sprecher 4: It's to the tunes of billions and billions of dollars. You also have to remember that we have, you know, just coming out of a decade where we were funding these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we've got crumbling infrastructure. We have major problems at our open border, which, you know, you guys know what an open border does. It shrinks the EU and produces Brexit. I do want to go back to the one thing that you were saying about Donald Trump calling Putin smart, because what I would say is if you outsmart Chancellor Merkel and you convince her that a pipeline is good, I'd say you're pretty smart. Putin outsmarted the Germans and convinced the German government and the German media that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was a good thing. So I think you've got to say he outsmarted you. That's the reality. It doesn't mean that you like him or you think that he did the right thing. But being honest about the fact that he outsmarted the Germans and the Europeans, I think, is the reality.

Sprecher 2: Right now he's a brutal war criminal. Let's stick to this and not look back. So how is the war in the Ukraine going to end? With a military tie between Ukraine and Russia and more military aid or negotiations? What's your proposal?

Sprecher 4: Well, first of all, I've worked at the U.S. State Department for 12 years. I'm a diplomat. I believe in strong, tough diplomacy as an alternative to war. And so I've been very vocal from the beginning when the U.S. Was screaming in the days leading up to Ukraine, when Joe Biden and the White House were saying the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming into Ukraine. I believed that Anthony Blinken should have gotten on his plane, brought the foreign ministers from Europe and gone and tried to solve this issue before we went to war. We had a lot of warning that it was coming and diplomats didn't do enough. What I believe is that there is always an alternative to war. We have to believe that, Michael. There has to be a team. I've said this publicly is that the president of the United States, when he's sitting in the Oval Office, needs two strong voices, needs one voice from the Pentagon that says, we're going to war, we're not negotiating, and we're going to kick some ass. And then we have another voice that says, wait a minute, there's still time to do sanctions or tariffs or worldwide pressure. There's other things that we can do. We have other tools in the tool belt, so to speak, before we just launch into a war. We never have done that. I'll throw this out there, and it's very controversial, and I don't mean that this is the solution. But the last time Putin invaded, Merkel and Obama got together and did Minsk and Minsk 2. So there is a precedent for having a discussion and put on paper. Now, the problem with Minsk agreements were that I don't believe the Russians ever planned on implementing those. They lied to get those. So we have to be very careful there. But that just means you need to have mechanisms in place. It doesn't mean that you don't try for an agreement. And I do think we've got to talk about NATO membership. That needs to be on the table. I think we need to talk about territorial integrity. The Chinese a year and a half ago, maybe even two years ago, offered a peace claim for Ukraine. Now, I'm clear-eyed about communist China. But when I read that peace plan, I thought it was a good start. And you know who else thought it was a good start is Zelensky. His first comment was, wow, the Chinese believe in territorial integrity for Ukraine. This is something that I can work with. The Biden White House told Zelensky to shut up about it. They did not want to have the Chinese talking about a peace plan. But the problem is, is that we haven't seen a peace plan from the NATO countries. We haven't seen a peace plan from America. We haven't seen a peace plan from the Germans. I do believe that our diplomats need to be tougher and they need to offer some sort of conversation. I don't believe, like the new president of Finland, who recently said that this is going to be solved on the battlefield. I don't believe that. I think there are other ways to solve this. And I want to be in the camp of trying to push for a peaceful settlement.

Sprecher 2: So in your view, no further military support could be delivered, right?

Sprecher 4: No, I don't. No, that's not that. I'm not a military expert. I'm not the guy who is going to constantly talk about the military solutions. I'm the diplomat. So I want to I want to at least have a conversation about where's the peace plan. If we're going to. talk about more war funding and more tanks and more military equipment, we also need to be talking about the peace plan. And so that's my role. Look, the president of the United States has to decide what the best options are. And right now, Joe Biden just keeps looking at the military options, frankly, because Anthony Blinken is ill-equipped to offer any type of a peace plan. And so there's nothing on the table. The White House has pushed Anthony Blinken and the State Department completely out of the picture. They're irrelevant to what's going on. Matter of fact, we're evacuating our embassies around the world. We don't have tough diplomacy going on whatsoever.

Sprecher 2: But it always needs two on the table if you have a conflict between two states. And Putin is not going to negotiate right now. He doesn't want to negotiate because he's...

Sprecher 4: How do you know that? Joe Biden has been...

Sprecher 2: Because he tells in the State of Union, he says that why should he negotiate only because the Ukraine is losing? That's more or less what he said. So he's putting more personnel, more tanks into the Ukraine territory right now.

Sprecher 4: One thing that I've learned about being in foreign policy for 25 years is there's a huge difference between what someone says publicly and what they say privately. And the fact of the matter is, did you know that Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin haven't spoken in two years? Do you know that? They haven't even spoken. Now, how can you say that you're trying to negotiate and try to stop the killing of thousands and thousands of people and the destruction? what's happening inside Ukraine. How can you say that you're doing everything possible if you're not even picking up the phone and talking to Putin? I find that to be completely outrageous.

Sprecher 2: Who could talk to Putin instead of Joe Biden?

Sprecher 4: Joe Biden. No, why? Why are we going to let him off the hook? Maybe because he's, you know, senile and can't think on his feet. He's got to be scripted all the time. That's no excuse.

Sprecher 2: So what would Trump do then? He said, I'm going to end this in one day. He would fly to Moscow and talk to Putin and let Crimea and the Donbass go to Russia and then he has a deal?

Sprecher 4: No, come on, Michael. We believe in territorial integrity, but you got to have discussions and you got to have somebody who's willing to talk. You can't make fun of somebody who's reaching out to Putin. By the way, Merkel reached out to Putin all of the time. She just was too weak to be able to get the job done. Donald Trump has demonstrated that he knows how to go in and negotiate and have success. We brought peace between Arabs and Israelis. Now we see a horrific war breaking out because Joe Biden funded Iran. He gave them money. We had them bankrupt. So I think when you go back and you look at what's going to happen when Donald Trump is president, and I believe he's going to be elected overwhelmingly by the American people, I believe that people understand that Donald Trump is a great negotiator and he He's unpredictable. Did you know that Vladimir Putin has endorsed Joe Biden for president? Did you hear that in his interview? What he said is, I like Joe Biden because he's more predictable. Now, what that tells me is that Putin and the Russians love someone who they can absolutely figure out and plan around.

Sprecher 2: He's right with that. Donald Trump is not really predictable. He's right with that, I guess.

Sprecher 4: Chancellor Merkel once said that to me. She said, you know, one of the problems with your president is that we can't figure out what he's going to do next. And I remember Michael smiling when she said that and thinking, this is exactly where we want to be.

Sprecher 2: So do you know what Donald Trump is going to do to the NATO? Because it's a broader debate, of course, for the NATO and the defense union. What is he really going to do with it? He was talking about it as an obsolete union. Is it now fitter because it's more needed in the war surroundings with the Ukraine? Or is it still the same view on the NATO like he had maybe four years ago?

Sprecher 4: You know, I'm really puzzled at what the legacy media, the mainstream media are doing to the public about this question. They keep saying, oh, what is Donald Trump going to do in his second term? The answer is he's going to do exactly what he did in his first term, which is create peace agreements and to have an amazing economy. You guys know exactly what Donald Trump is going to do. There is no mystery to what Donald Trump is going to do. know that he wants to have peace agreements and more economic prosperity. You know that he wants to fight for fair agreements between Europe and the United States. He's going to continue doing what he has always done, which is common sense and putting America first. And look, I would argue, and I've said this when I was in Germany a lot, I would argue that when America puts itself first, the world benefits because there's the rule of law, there's capitalism, there's a respect for human rights. We don't conquer, we don't take over land, we don't take your oil, we don't do things like that. We are a good nation that seeks to have the rule of law and a better way of life for people. And so when America puts itself first, the world benefits. By the way, Germany puts itself first, France puts itself first, Holland puts itself first. So there should be no critique when America tries to put itself first.

Sprecher 2: It's true, but there has been a good reason for building the NATO as a defense union.

Sprecher 4: Okay, so let me go back. I forgot.

Sprecher 2: The history was a good argument for the NATO. So why not having allies and institutions who cover for themselves if one is weaker as the other? Or can we say every man for himself instead of all for one? Is that the future of foreign policy?

Sprecher 4: No, so what you're talking about is whether or not to use institutions like the United Nations or NATO. NATO has been a very successful... successful organization. Donald Trump did not implode it. He made it stronger. More countries gave money to do it. But you can't blame America or Americans that are tired of having to shoulder most of the burden. We shouldn't be having new members of NATO who can't pay their 2% obligation. We shouldn't be having to have a discussion with countries and say, why aren't you paying your 2%? You know, we have this concept in America that if you join a country club, you got to pay your dues. And that means being prepared. And by the way, we understand that you're not paying your dues to NATO. You're paying to be prepared. And nothing undermines NATO more than countries who can't participate when there is a crisis. Countries who don't have the ability to send troops or ammunition or hardware. You have to be prepared because in a crisis, you can't just look and say, well, gosh, I hope America does something. You have to be prepared. Europe needs to be prepared. And so you guys understand Donald Trump. You know exactly what he's going to do. He's going to make countries pay their fair share. We find it offensive in America that countries would say, no, we're going to be a part of NATO. We're not going to pay our 2% and you just have got to pay for us. And then meanwhile, they're building opera houses and great bridges and airports in their country. We'd like to do that. We have terrible. airports in the United States because we're defending so many other people with a huge military bill. We would like to have nice airports too. I love the Munich airport. That is a fantastic airport. One of my favorites in the whole world.

Sprecher 2: You haven't been to BER lately, I guess. We have our problems with infrastructure as well, and we are the second biggest donator to the military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. We spend our 2% of our gross domestic product. It's at your doorstep.

Sprecher 4: You better. It's at your doorstep. You better. I think we would, if that was happening in Mexico, we'd be the same way.

Sprecher 2: All right, let's talk about the end of the war once again. So if you say Trump gets elected as president, would that be his priority for Europe to end this war?

Sprecher 4: Yeah, I think that's one of the priorities. Sure. He said that it would be a top priority. Now, look, the reality is, is that Zelensky and the Europeans and Putin and everyone else knows that Donald Trump means what he says and will utilize all of the tools in the tool belt. Let's remember that. Russia is selling more oil right now than they ever have before. How is that possible? That is ridiculous. Thanks to China. Donald Trump is somebody who would go to China and India and every other country that's buying the oil and say, knock it off. And if you don't do it by tomorrow. there are going to be consequences. That's fundamentally different than kind of weird, oddly general comment from Joe Biden about, you know, we're going to talk to our allies about doing something more on oil. Donald Trump understands that he can be very specific, do something tomorrow and get it done. He is much more of a CEO type rather than a politician.

Sprecher 2: But politics is not only business. It's not only deals. It's also, you don't like it, but we say in Germany, the Wertegemeinschaft. You have heard that Werteorientierte Außenpolitik is something that you had to learn as ambassador here. It's not only deals. It's also that we want to rely on a partner who is a fighter for freedom. Even if one country doesn't pay its bills for one year and is getting back to the track later on, I want to be on a stable situation as a member of an institution.

Sprecher 4: I totally understand that. And what you're missing on that is your assumption that you get to be a free rider. The idea that, okay, let's take the top three issues that me and Donald Trump were pushing in Germany to which the German government and the German media hated us and critiqued us on all three of these issues. Okay. All three of these issues, the German government has basically said we were wrong and we apologized. One, Nord Stream 2. NATO spending, the 2%. And three, Iran sanctions. I would argue that two of those three, because the Biden team and the Germans went back to a policy that wasn't Trump's policy, and two of those, Nord Stream 2 in Iran, created two wars.

Sprecher 2: But it's true. We had the problems with the Iranian funding the Hamas, and we see it now where that leads to. We can talk about this later.

Sprecher 4: But you mocked us when we said don't do business with the Iran regime. The entirety of the political system. We stopped the funding. You know what they said? We can do that. And by the way, you're funding Saudi Arabia. That was always the comments. So I think there needs to just be an inward look at the fact that Donald Trump was right on his top three issues that the Germans were complaining about, two of which created war.

Sprecher 2: The U.S. Is funding Saudi Arabia as well. That's a whole different topic. And this is not a country which we really should rely on international politics as well. That's a different story.

Sprecher 4: Iran is much worse. Iran is funding terrorism around the world.

Sprecher 2: Who is to say that Trump would make a deal with Zelensky or with Putin or even with the Chinese leader or with someone else or with Netanyahu to the detriment of someone other? Maybe he makes a deal with Putin to the detriment of Ukraine. That's what deals are. There's not only winners, there are some losers.

Sprecher 4: Let me let me. Get this straight. You're worried about the guy who produced peace deals and what he might come in and cut a deal on in the future while ignoring the fact that we didn't have any wars and three wars broke out under Joe Biden. I think you should articulate how angry the Germans and the Europeans should be at Joe Biden, how angry they should be that war has broken out and we've had to spend billions of dollars at the doorstep of Europe. I think the alternative of Donald Trump coming in and having peaceful agreements that benefit America and Europe is a welcomed sign. We can't wait to have Donald Trump come back and negotiate agreements, because what we saw when Donald Trump was in charge is that we had peace agreements and no war.

Sprecher 2: We're going to see that. He's not elected, Ambassador, to tell you the truth. He's not elected yet, even though you are very fond of his presidency already. But how big is his chance, by the way, right now? Donald Trump's chance. Several legal proceedings are currently underway against Trump.

Sprecher 4: I'm not concerned about the legal stuff at all. What I'm concerned about is that the Democratic Party is very smart. They know that they waited way too long and now can't dump Joe Biden. There's a lot of angst from Democrats who constantly say, oh, my gosh, what are we doing? We've got Joe Biden. There's this belief in the Democrats, yeah, but we're running against Trump, and so we're going to win. be able to beat them. But if you just look at the last election, first of all, I believe that there was all sorts of shenanigans and games playing in the mail-in ballots and the counting of votes and all that. But putting that aside...

Sprecher 2: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You still think the election was fraud?

Sprecher 4: Yeah, I doubt. Oh, there's a lot of fraud. Look, even the Associated Press has changed their tune, Michael. No reporter in America says there was no fraud. Now what reporters are saying, there was no widespread fraud. They moved from there was no fraud in this election to, okay, there's no widespread fraud.

Sprecher 2: So Biden is not a legitimate elected president in your view?

Sprecher 4: Well, I think there's a difference between you can say that there was fraud in the election, which there was, and it went uninvestigated, and the fact that the system put Joe Biden in place. He is the person who's elected president. He is the elected president. I think that the election was filled with fraud that we didn't investigate. That's my opinion. And by the way, I share that same opinion that Hillary Clinton had in the 2016 election. And a whole bunch of other Democratic politicians say the same thing about the 2016 election. So we share the concern about the American election.

Sprecher 2: The judiciary will rule on that, right? I mean, we have to wait for that.

Sprecher 4: Well, that's what I was saying is I don't I don't I'm not worried about the the legal stuff at all. What I'm worried about is a Democratic Party that knows they're losing. And. will have a history of manipulating everything. Remember when they were losing on the Supreme Court, the Democrat Party came out and said, well, we want to add Supreme Court justices. We want to add a couple more since Joe Biden's president. He'll get to add a couple more. That's like an attack on our democracy when you're losing, so you change the institution. When they were losing on states, they decided, oh, we think Puerto Rico and some other states should, some other territories should become states. Now they've opened up the floodgates at the southern border, and they're allowing people to come in unvetted. Europeans who are trying to get citizenship in the United States or long-term visas who are in line should be furious because all you got to do is fly to Mexico and come up through the southern border and suddenly you're getting a free phone and a free ride to another city and housing and all sorts of things.

Sprecher 2: Doesn't it bother you if Trump calls migrants animals?

Sprecher 4: No, Michael, listen, he didn't call all migrants animals. He called the one who killed a woman, brutally killed a woman. If you brutally kill someone, you're an animal. What would you call someone who brutally kills somebody? Would you not call them an animal?

Sprecher 2: Of course, but he wasn't not really talking only on this woman. Yes, he was.

Sprecher 4: You're wrong, Michael. He was talking about this situation and said that someone who does that is an animal. He doesn't. I mean, this is fake news. If you say, look...

Sprecher 2: His rhetoric on migrants, Rick, is not really decent or...

Sprecher 4: We have terrorists on the watch list who have entered our country illegally. We have cities that we call sanctuary cities, Michael, which are a nice name for people who say, come and break the immigration law and we won't do anything about it here. We have a media in the United States who purposely interchange. Immigrant with illegal immigrant. Donald Trump is married to an immigrant. We welcome immigrants. We give a million people a year, roughly a million people a year citizenship in the United States. We're the most generous nation in the history of the world when it comes to immigration. But you got to follow the rules because there's 100 million people that want to move here. We got to have rules. If you don't have rules, you don't have a country and you get Brexit. And so the reality is we are doing everything we can to communicate. Immigrants legally are welcome in America. You got to follow the rules. Illegal immigrants are breaking the rules and should be dealt with harshly.

Sprecher 2: Absolutely right. It has to be right. That is the same discussion we have with our migrants here as well. I was just talking about the rhetoric. Let me ask you one more thing on Trump's criminal charges. You said you don't really are upset about it. this and it's the Democrats who fear Donald Trump and it's not the judiciary you fear. If he really pushes support to the attack on the Capitol, the core institution of the democracy in the United States, isn't that something? We should talk about the rhetoric.

Sprecher 4: No, it's all overplayed, Michael. Do you know that the last tweet before Donald Trump got kicked off Twitter, do you know what it was?

Sprecher 2: No. Tell me.

Sprecher 4: Donald Trump tweeted, March peacefully to the Capitol. He said march peacefully. We have the ability.

Sprecher 2: His supporters didn't understand him, I guess.

Sprecher 4: No, no, look. Because it was Trump supporters.

Sprecher 2: It was Trump supporters, right?

Sprecher 4: Within a couple of hours on January 6th, I tweeted out, and President Trump has been very clear as well, to say anyone who committed vandalism or broke in should be prosecuted. But they're prosecuting people who on videotape are being welcomed into the Capitol by the police. They're opening the door and welcoming them in. We have to be smart about this. You can't lump everybody in and say every single person who was protesting is somehow a criminal that did vandalism. If they did do vandalism, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I'm with you. But that's not what happened. We in America, Michael, we have people sitting in prison who... were peaceful protesters still in prison three years later. That's un-American. That's like Fauci in your head court.

Sprecher 2: People died on this attack. It was not only peaceful protests. No, that's not true.

Sprecher 4: Who died? The only person who died was Ashley Babbitt, a person who was peacefully protesting and who got shot by a cop. This whole narrative that other people died, they died later of other causes, not at the Capitol.

Sprecher 2: If you travel through America and you see in the neighborhoods, either way, Trump supporters or Biden supporters left or right, and it's a very intense situation. People don't really want to talk to each other anymore. You can see that when you go to the suburbs, a lot of these TV documentaries I've seen in the last weeks.

Sprecher 4: Is that a Spiegel documentary? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Sprecher 2: It wasn't a Spiegel.

Sprecher 4: Minneapolis, Minnesota. No, no, no.

Sprecher 2: The former aide, the aide of Christian Lindner, the finance minister, was traveling throughout the United States the last four or five weeks. And he said, it's a divided country and it's very intense. And doesn't America need...

Sprecher 4: I don't know where he went, but that sounds anecdotal. Look, I live outside of Washington.

Sprecher 2: Of course it's anecdotal. Of course it's anecdotal. He was just traveling throughout the Midwestern.

Sprecher 4: Yeah, I don't believe that that's true. I live outside of Washington, and I live in a very blue state in California. And my neighbors, for instance, are... probably Joe Biden supporters because they had a Gavin Newsom sign in their yard during the last election. But they have a key to my house. They pick up my mail when I go out of town. I watch their dog. They watch mine. I help them out. This is America. We can have differences and still be friends, but you don't see that outside. You don't see that in Washington or with Washington reporters. This is just a phenomenon that Washington likes to create. Outside of Washington, outside of Berlin, people are normal.

Sprecher 2: He was not even in Washington. He was really in Idaho. He was in Missouri and states like that. But anyway, I mean, do you really think it's not the divided states of America right now? It's still the United States?

Sprecher 4: Well, I would just say this to Christian Lindner's staffer. If he goes to Missouri and goes to a restaurant and asks people about politics, you're going to get differing views and you're going to get people who differ. But they don't know him. And he's not their neighbor. And I can guarantee you that those people who have, when asked about, you know, how do you feel about Joe Biden or Donald Trump, and they have some real opinions, hardfelt opinions, I can guarantee you that outside of Washington, they're normal people and they have friends that are on the opposite side of the aisle and they don't try to cancel them.

Sprecher 2: So if I sum up what you said, it's fear, maybe from outside of America or even the media in America. America, the fear of Donald Trump is not in any way justified.

Sprecher 4: Yeah, I've given you a whole bunch of examples today where the media completely get it wrong. And if anything, consumers of news really have a responsibility to figure out, you know, what's the real story. And so when it comes to America's divided and all of that, look, I think Americans have hard fought opinions about war and they know Washington, D.C. Is broken and they see inflation and gas prices and an open border. They have very strong views on that. But again, most people are not as political as you and I and as the media. When you get outside of Berlin, people have lives. When you get outside of Washington, people have other interests.

Sprecher 2: Absolutely. It's not always politics. It's only politics for us.

Sprecher 4: Only with us. Only with you and me.

Sprecher 2: I know, Ambassador. What's your role if Trump gets elected?

Sprecher 4: By the way, Lola's still here. Do you see her?

Sprecher 2: I see the dog.

Sprecher 4: You see how close it is?

Sprecher 2: Does the dog at least miss Germany a little bit?

Sprecher 4: Yeah. Oh, you know what? She misses the receptions where everybody was feeding her and getting her fat. That's what you mean.

Sprecher 2: What do you miss from Germany?

Sprecher 4: I miss so much about Germany. It's a wonderful, wonderful place. The people, I think, are the best. When I would speak out in public, how many people would come up and say, oh, I agree with you. Look, I've said this before, and I believe it wholeheartedly, is that the German business community and the American business community are one in the same. They really are. You can't peel them away. Lufthansa has 15,000 American employees. I have been also I'm not going to mention any names because I know the culture and somebody will get canceled. But I'm up to about six different German CEOs that have reached out to me over the last couple of months to say, hey, can we have a conversation? Your German CEOs, they secretly like Trump. There's no question about it. They want an economy that's soaring. They want no wars. They're frustrated. My point in saying this is that Germany has the ability, and I've said this when you were with the Rheinisch-Ruppost, Germany has the ability to be Donald Trump's favorite country. Our business communities are so much alike. Where we're different, and I think we're getting to the point where the American business community is starting to listen too much to the American government, because certainly I think that's the problem in Germany, where the German business community is afraid of the German government. And so they take the meeting and they listen and they would rather not take the meeting and they would rather not listen, but they're afraid to stand up to the German government. I think we're beginning to have that problem here where the corporations are listening too much to the government. The government is. getting too powerful. And I believe that the people have to be able to have the voice and that the corporations should be on the side of the people, not the government. And the things that I miss about Germany the most is probably Munich.

Sprecher 2: Ah, good. Did any official of the Ample Coalition reach out to you?

Sprecher 4: I don't want to go there. Suffice to say that there is over the last six months, there's been quite a few German politicians reaching out.

Sprecher 2: Chancellor?

Sprecher 4: I'm not going to go into it.

Sprecher 2: An aide of the chancellor? Okay, you know. When are you going to be back in Germany? Let's finish this podcast with this.

Sprecher 4: Well, I travel quite a bit, so I'm always in and out of Frankfurt or Munich pretty regularly. But in terms of staying there for a while, I don't have any specific plans.

Sprecher 2: Thank you very much for being on the show. We appreciate that you take that time for the German listeners, your former audience, and all the best for you in Los Angeles. Thank you very much, Ambassador Grinnell.

Sprecher 4: All the best to you and the whole team there. Thanks, Michael.

Sprecher 2: Das war der ehemalige US-Botschafter in Deutschland und ich hatte Ihnen ja versprochen, er, Mann, bleibt unbequem. Man muss sicherlich nicht alles teilen, was Richard Grinnell gesagt hat, aber ich denke, man sollte es wissen. Denn wie die USA unter Donald Trump agieren könnte, vor allem außenpolitisch, das könnte nach diesem Gespräch doch ein wenig klarer geworden sein. Jedenfalls, wir müssen uns nicht grämen und Angst haben sollten wir sowieso nicht. Denn das, was Politiker in Sonntagsreden gerne behaupten, mehr Verantwortung übernehmen in Europa, das ist spätestens unter Donald Trump wirklich staatsmännische Pflicht. Europa muss alleine laufen lernen. Sie hören an dieser Stelle am Montag Helene Bubrowski wieder. Bis dahin, auf Wiederhören. Ihr Michael Bröker.

Sprecher 1: Table Today mit Michael Bröker und Helene Bubrowski.

Sprecher 3: Ich bin manchmal ein bisschen zu ehrlich, aber ganz im Ernst, ich mag es einfach klar, ohne Überraschungen. Genau deshalb bin ich bei Frank, dem einfach Mobilfunkanbieter. App runterladen, Tarif bestellen, fertig. 20 GB für 10 Euro. In bester D-Netz-Qualität. Monatlich kündbar, keine versteckten Kosten. Und das Beste ist Frank for Friends. Ich schicke einfach meinen Code an meine FreundInnen. Und jedes Mal, wenn jemand darüber startet, kriegen wir alle dauerhaft extra Datenvolumen. Kein Drama, keine Geheimnisse. Also, probier's mit Frank. Ist ehrlich einfacher.