Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel excoriated President-elect Donald Trump in her memoir and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, though her support wasn’t known until after the Nov. 5 election.
Freedom, which will come out later this month, is Merkel’s first book, detailing her experiences beginning in 1954 and ending with her departure from the chancellorship in 2021. Excerpts from the book were published in the German weekly Die Zeit, detailing her experiences with and thoughts on Trump. In them, she expressed her great distaste for the president-elect, criticizing his leadership.
Much of her comments, including calling Trump “emotional,” revolve around a meeting with the president-elect at the White House in 2017.
“We spoke on two different levels. Trump on an emotional level, me on a factual one,” Merkel writes. “When he did pay attention to my arguments, it was usually only in order to construct new accusations from them.”
“When I flew home, I didn’t have a good feeling,” she continues. “I concluded from my conversations: There would be no joint work for a networked world with Trump.”
Merkel particularly criticizes his attitude toward autocratic leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Donald Trump asked me a number of questions, including about my East German origins and my relationship with Putin,” she writes.
“He was obviously very fascinated by the Russian president,” Merkel continues. “In the years that followed, I had the impression that politicians with autocratic and dictatorial traits captivated him.“
After commenting at length on the duo’s unpleasant interactions, the former chancellor makes her full views known by endorsing Harris despite the book coming out weeks after the election. She didn’t publicly comment on the election previously.
“I wish with all my heart that Kamala Harris … defeats her competitor and becomes president,” she writes.
At another point, Merkel says her main mistake was treating Trump as “someone completely normal,” in reference to an incident when he allegedly refused to shake her hand in front of the cameras.
“Instead of stoically bearing it, I whispered to him that we should shake hands again,” she writes. “As soon as the words left my mouth, I shook my head at myself. How could I forget that Trump knew precisely what he was doing? … He wanted to give people something to talk about with his behavior, while I had acted as though I were having a conversation with someone completely normal.”
Though both came from center-right parties, Trump and Merkel were noted as having been on decidedly different pages on political matters, especially about immigration and trade. Trump commented unfavorably on Merkel while on the campaign trail in 2024.
“They [the Germans] didn’t love me because I said you gotta pay,” he said at a rally in Pennsylvania just before the election, referring to Germany’s failure to meet its defense spending goals as part of NATO. “I said to Angela: Angela, you haven’t paid.”
Merkel is holding a book event in Washington, D.C., with former President Barack Obama on Dec. 2.
Merkel held the chancellorship position for 16 years, enjoying a favorable image during her tenure. However, her reputation has since plummeted, with the fallout of her decision to let in huge numbers of Middle Eastern refugees leading to the rise of the right-wing AFD Party, and her decision to rely on Russian natural gas jeopardizing the country’s economy after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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“Since leaving power, many Germans view her legacy much more critically. Either because her policies are seen to have failed or because her inaction is perceived to have worked on many of Germany’s existing problems,” Marcel Dirsus of Kiel University’s Institute for Security Policy told Reuters.
Though Merkel criticized Trump for his supposed admiration of Putin in her memoirs, Merkel has come under heavy criticism for her own cozy relationship with the Russian president. Some critics have gone so far as to hold her partially responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.