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.

Donald Trump’s pick for the number two position in the Department of Defense, Steve Feinberg, is a billionaire with business ties to the defense industry.

The Washington Post, citing unnamed sources, reports that the president-elect has chosen Feinberg for the post of deputy secretary of defense, which requires confirmation from the Senate. Feinberg is co-CEO of Cerberus Capital Management, which has invested in hypersonic missiles and once owned private military contractor DynCorp.

In Trump’s first term, Feinberg was the head of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which gives advice to the president on intelligence estimates and assessments, as well as counterintelligence. The deputy secretary of defense post comes with much more responsibility, with day-to-day management of the massive department’s three million civilian employees and service members among its duties.

Like Trump’s choice for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, Feinberg does not have experience running a large organization or working in the Pentagon. Plus, Feinberg’s investments and business activities would create multiple conflicts of interest if his appointment to the DOD survives the Senate.

Unlike Hegseth, Feinberg doesn’t have a long list of sexual misconduct, as well as scandals running veterans organizations (that we know of). His appointment could convince senators that there’s someone competent actually running things as the deputy to a Christian nationalist who envisions the military taking sides in a civil war scenario.

Feinberg is not the only Trump appointee with conflicts of interest: The president-elect’s pick to run Medicare and Medicaid, Mehmet Oz, has multiple ties to the pharmaceutical industry. But Feinberg’s defense industry ties could affect his view of the role of the U.S. military, as the Trump administration is already stocked with pro-war and pro-intervention advisers. A man who stands to profit when the U.S. military is deployed doesn’t bode well for peace.

Florida Representative Jared Moskowitz is the first Democrat to join the caucus for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

“I will join the congressional DOGE caucus, because I believe that streamlining government processes and reducing ineffective government spending should not be a partisan issue,” Moskowitz wrote in a statement. He also noted that the Department of Homeland Security was “too big” and that the Secret Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency should become independent. Many Republicans—including the authors of Project 2025—are in favor of privatizing key agencies like FEMA.

Moskowitz has often gone out of his way to side with Republicans on key issues. He has argued that the debt is too large, backing devastating cuts to the federal government. More recently, he has supported Israel’s war on Gaza and is also one of the largest recipients of AIPAC funding in the House; Moskowitz was one of a handful of Democrats to recently give Donald Trump extraordinary powers to strip the tax-exempt status of nonprofits. These are all decisions that make Moskowitz’s enthusiasm for DOGE much less surprising. And, as Slate’s Alex Sammon noted on Twitter, Moskowitz also served as Ron DeSantis’s Covid czar before joining the House of Representatives.

Loyal DOGE appointees Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have their sights set on cutting massive swaths of the federal government, including but not limited to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, international grants, and funding for “progressive groups.”

Donald Trump’s handlers are mum on whether or not the president-elect plans to pardon himself at the onset of his second term.

Speaking with CNN Tuesday, top Trump adviser Jason Miller dodged the point-blank question, skirting any clear answer as to whether or not Trump plans to relieve himself of his federal charges once he’s in office.

“Is he considering—would he consider pardoning himself? Would President-elect Trump consider pardoning himself?” prompted CNN’s Kasie Hunt.

“That would never be something that I would weigh in on,” Miller said. “That would be something for the legal team to discuss. And again, President Trump did nothing wrong.”

“Has it been discussed behind the scenes?” Hunt interjected.

“That’s not something that I would have been a part of. And again, that’s not something for myself to go and comment on because President Trump didn’t do anything wrong,” Miller reiterated, before highlighting some of Trump’s recent selections to lead the nation’s criminal justice systems, including his former attorney Pam Bondi—whom he’s tapped to replace Matt Gaetz as his attorney general nominee—and Kash Patel, whom Trump has selected to front the FBI.

Miller also downplayed the sexual assault allegations against Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, ex–Fox host Pete Hegseth, whose own mother accused of “using women for his own power.”

But that’s not the only criminal record that’s floating around Trumpworld’s conscience. In the same interview, Miller made note that Trump intends to take a fine-tooth comb to the cases of the January 6 rioters.

“I want to be careful here and make sure I’m being very direct with you. President Trump has said a number of times on the campaign trail that he’s going to look at each of these cases individually, full stop,” Miller said. “That’s what he said. There’s never been a declaration of some—something bigger, broader. And again, that’s for something for the Department of Justice to go deal with when President Trump takes office again, not for someone who’s a spokesperson from the campaign or transition team.”

“Because, again, the whole point here is, we have to get politics out of the justice system. Justice should apply to everybody equally,” he added.

Donald Trump’s election has Republicans chomping at the bit at some of their favorite targets: government programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

In an interview with Fox Business Tuesday morning, Representative Richard McCormick complained that “75 percent of the budget is nondiscretionary” and outlined GOP plans to tackle it.

“We’re gonna have to have some hard decisions. We’re gotta bring the Democrats in and talk about Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare,” McCormick said. “There’s hundreds of billions of dollars to be saved and we know how to do it. We just have to have the stomach to actually take those challenges on.”

McCormick’s words are not surprising. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump floated the idea of cutting Social Security and Medicare, saying in March that there is “a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting, and in terms of also—the theft and the bad management of entitlements.”

Cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security was also floated earlier this year by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who promised to cut the programs in favor of boosting the country’s military spending. And the infamous conservative manifesto Project 2025, which Trump and the GOP tried to distance themselves from until Trump’s election victory, also includes drastic cuts to the popular programs.

While McCormick pledges to talk to the Democrats about such cuts, the GOP is unlikely to get much traction with the opposing party, especially since Republicans will have a razor-thin majority in the House where a single vote or two could tank their legislative agenda.

Even if the GOP manages to win over a couple of Democrats, any plans to cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid will get pushback from powerful organizations such as the AARP. Older voters who rely on the programs also make up the base of the Republican Party, and politicians from both parties should be wary of provoking them.