Merz responds to Trumps threats (American Reaction)

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Hello and hello. Thank you for joining me. How are you guys doing? So, this situation, it's continuing to evolve with the Cheeto and chief, the minister of the board of peace, Donald Trump, threatening to remove 5,000 troops from Germany, of course, out of nowhere.

[00:00:17]Um, pretty crazy thing to just threaten out of nowhere. Anyway, Meritz has responded. Um, and also Maloney has said something. She's rejecting backing the US troop pull out. Kind of a weird way of putting that, but um okay, I'm interested in hearing what they both have to say on this matter, so let's do it.

[00:00:40]Despite recent disagreements with President >> Turn it up, >> Donald Trump speaking in a televised interview with public broadcaster ARD on Sunday, MS described the US as Germany's most important ally, acknowledging that policy differences are inevitable.

[00:00:56]>> Most important ally period, >> insisting they do not undermine the strength of the transatlantic partnership.

[00:01:05]I have to accept that the American president holds a different view on these issues than we do. But that does not alter the fact that I remain convinced the Americans are important partners for us. The most important ones in the North Atlantic alliance.

[00:01:23]>> He he sounds a little bit like defeated.

[00:01:26]I don't know. I guess he's in a he he it feels like he's not sure exactly which way to turn. merits, you know, he's in a awkward position here. And it's like, yeah, maybe you can accept or like come to terms with the fact that Donald Trump is never going to see eye to eye with you, but that doesn't mean you have to just like sit there and say nothing. You know what I mean? Like, you're allowed to say whatever you want and say the truth, especially, you know, people need to be speaking the truth on what's going on.

[00:01:57]And just because Donald Trump doesn't like the truth, like Donald Trump needs to come to the ter just just like you are saying you can come to the terms with the fact that you know Donald Trump is never going to agree with you. Donald Trump needs to come to terms that he's never going to agree with merits.

[00:02:15]There should be no no ridiculous punishment or blackmail or, you know, threats of, you know, drastic measures just for someone saying something, for critiquing something, especially something that's so obviously, you know, critiqueable.

[00:02:33]The war in Iran is a disaster.

[00:02:37]It'd be one thing if it wasn't, but it is.

[00:02:42]So I that's really [ __ ] annoying to me that Trump is like manipulating these people into, you know, and threatening these people to not speak their minds.

[00:02:53]>> I remain convinced the Americans are important partners for us, the most important ones in the North Atlantic Alliance. His remarks follow Washington's announcement of a troop draw down in Germany, a move MS downplayed as neither new nor a major concern. Despite ongoing disagreements over the Iran conflict, he reaffirmed his commitment to continued cooperation with Trump and pledged not to abandon efforts to maintain strong transatlantic ties. The comments come amid a sharp deterioration in relations between the two countries.

[00:03:27]>> I mean, it is a little bit confusing to me. Like I'm not sure exactly what I kind of was under the impression that merits had just decided you know Trump had gone too far and you know there was no more room to beat around the bush. You know it was just going to have to be a disagreement.

[00:03:48]But now it's kind of like he's kind of hedging on it, which I don't I really just don't as enjoy seeing Donald Trump's um methods working in any way. You know, >> in relations between the two countries, Trump reacted angrily to earlier criticism of US strategy in the Iran war.

[00:04:12]>> The tariffs. I'm going to do a whole thing on the tariffs tomorrow, I think.

[00:04:15]responding with plans to reduce US troop levels in Germany and impose higher tariffs on European Union automobile imports. Meanwhile, global attention is shifting to Yervan where world leaders have begun arriving ahead of the eighth summit of the European political community held under the theme building the fas [laughter] is that Joe Biden of the eighth summit of the European political community held under the >> Oh man, I just It's so cute how they almost kissed here.

[00:04:47][laughter] I don't even know who this is. I'm just obviously I know that's Mron. I don't know who the other guy is. Looks like Joe Biden. Anyway, it's irrelevant.

[00:04:56]Well, that sounds rude. It's relevant.

[00:04:58]I'm sure it's just not relevant to this video.

[00:05:02]All right, Maloney. Let's see what she has to say. I'm kind of curious. You know, her and Trump has have had a bit of a falling out a little bit, you know, which so has, you know, I mean, she was even closer to Trump than Merittz was, you know, but Trump thought Merittz was on his side. He really thought Maloney was on his side.

[00:05:22]But strangely enough, she's actually she has more allegiance to um Europe than Trump. Wow. Shocking.

[00:05:32]>> Look, I can't tell you what will happen.

[00:05:34]As I've said many times before, we know that for some time now the United States has, shall we say, been discussing a withdrawal from Europe. which is why I believe we must strengthen our security and let's say develop our capacity to respond in this regard.

[00:05:51]>> The irony of it all is like um like Trump is obviously just using this all it's all just leverage you know for a negotiation. That's how Trump views anything. But what he doesn't recognize is that like if you push too many times then Europe is just going to like stop depending on the United States for anything and then we won't have any leverage to do anything. So, it's like he always says he has all the cards and it's like we have a lot of cards as the United States, but if we just decide to play them all and against our own allies and for no reason, then that's just like I don't know. There's some stupid nerdy video game metaphor I could use or something, but I can't think of one, you know? It's just it's just stupid. How's that? It's stupid.

[00:06:46]We don't need a metaphor. It's just dumb. Obviously, like by tariffing the whole world and then withdrawing our troops from the whole world, we will no longer have any no one will depend on us. And any leverage you had won't exist and that's the direction we're going very quickly. And even worse than that, we will have no friends as well. It's just a disaster.

[00:07:14]develop our capacity to respond in this regard. That said, it is clearly a decision that does not depend on me and one that I personally would not support.

[00:07:24]But there is one thing I would like to make clear. Italy has always honored its commitments. Italy has honored every commitment it has undertaken. It has always done so. We have done so particularly within NATO. We have done so even when our direct interests were not at stake. We did so in Afghanistan.

[00:07:40]We did so in Iraq. And so let's say I do not consider some of the things that have been said about us to be fair. Not least because within the Atlantic Alliance, no one has ever appeared in a formal setting to ask the No one has ever appeared in a formal setting to ask the Allies support regarding the choices they were making.

[00:07:58]>> You talked about uh possibly um pulling out some troops out of Germany. Uh would you be considering the same thing for Spain and Italy? I mean, they haven't been exactly on board.

[00:08:08]>> Yeah, probably. Yeah, I probably will.

[00:08:10]Why should I, you know, look, why shouldn't I? Uh, Italy has not been of any help to us and Spain has been horrible. Absolutely horrible.

[00:08:24]You know, it's NATO. It's not even the fact that they're bad. It's one thing if they said nicely or if they said, "Okay, we'll help, but the help's a little slow."

[00:08:35]But the level and we helped them with Ukraine. You know, they made a mess out of Ukraine, a total mess. And we helped them with Ukraine. Ukraine has nothing to do. You know, we we're an ocean apart.

[00:08:53]>> It's just so such an unfair argument. It's so ridiculous. You know, like Ukraine was attacked.

[00:09:03]Europe didn't go attack Russia and then complain that we didn't join. You know, that would be the orange like apples to apples comparison if Europe went and attacked Russia and then [laughter] like the next day they're like, "Hey, United States, you need to join in right now."

[00:09:27]Like, would we just would we just jump right in to a war? But that's not what happened in Ukraine. Russia attacked Ukraine.

[00:09:38]That's why we helped. Duh.

[00:09:41]It's like a fundamental difference.

[00:09:44]There's a fundamental difference between being the aggressor and the defender. We all know this down to even just the individual scale.

[00:09:54]If you get in a fight with someone and you're the aggressor, that's a lot different than if you're the defender.

[00:10:00]If you're the defender, people are going to come to your help. Why would people jump to help the offender?

[00:10:07]Now, of course, it can be more complicated than that, you know, but um in general, that is a law of the universe and humanity and morality.

[00:10:20]Duh.

[00:10:24]>> We're an ocean apart. It has to do with them. It's like for them it's their front door. We help them and Biden gave them 30.

[00:10:32]>> And also, we're not any closer I don't I guess I'd have to see the exact distances, but we're probably further away I from uh Iran than Ukraine. So like it it's like what do you it's confusing like why are you using that the distance from Ukraine as a measurement when we're further from Iran and obviously we only did it on Israel's behalf. So, like this is really a question of if Europe wants to help Israel. It's not even really about helping us. It's does Europe want to help Israel in their war of aggression?

[00:11:14][clears throat] We did. Of course, but any man, >> he knows it's a [ __ ] comparison.

[00:11:24]>> Billion, which is insane. It's one of the reasons the war went on. But uh >> maybe he doesn't.

[00:11:31]>> When we needed them, they were not there. We have to remember that. And so >> what does it even mean when we needed them? When we needed them when we were doing a surprise attack against Iran, >> we ever had >> that we didn't tell them about until the next day.

[00:11:46]>> A big one. Cuz we didn't need any help with Iran. We we had Iran right from the first day.

[00:11:51]>> So did we need them or not? It >> was over.

[00:11:54]>> It's not over. It's still not over.

[00:12:01]And now it's even more so. We're so locked and loaded if we want to do it.

[00:12:05]But we didn't need the help. And to a certain extent, I asked him, I didn't need the help, but I said, "Yeah, we'd love to have you help." Because I wanted to see if they do it.

[00:12:14]>> Watching him walk this stupid line of, "Oh, we didn't need their help, but we we needed their help, and they didn't help when we needed them, but we didn't want their help, but we were just testing them." It's so dumb. And they in all cases they said we don't want to get involved. And you know they >> How dare they? [laughter] We don't want to get involved in a war.

[00:12:34]How dare you?

[00:12:36]>> Amazing thing is they use these straight of horror movies. We don't we don't >> You're a dumbass.

[00:12:42]>> Use it. We don't need it.

[00:12:43]>> Oil is set on the global. It's a global commodity. Globally traded.

[00:12:47]The price is set globally. We all use it. If the straightup muse is blocked, everyone using oil is affected. Not just Europe.

[00:12:58]Duh. This is obvious.

[00:13:01]>> We have a lot of oil.

[00:13:02]>> Gas is double. Where I live, gas is double. Doesn't matter that we have a lot of oil. The only one benefiting in that case is the oil company. That doesn't really benefit me much.

[00:13:15]What the [ __ ] do I care that the oil company's making a bit more revenue or a lot more revenue?

[00:13:21]That's supposed to help me. Are you kidding?

[00:13:24]>> The >> I'm the one I'm paying it.

[00:13:26]>> Great of horror movies. We don't We don't use it. We don't need it.

[00:13:30]>> We have a lot of oil and Well, wait a minute. And they use it. We don't >> But we went and [ __ ] it all up.

[00:13:40]He has to know it's [ __ ] right? The thing is, he's not the one he's not the type of person to actually care if his arguments are logical. just if he can manipulate people, just if he can make it sound like it might be logical to someone who doesn't really like think about it. [gasps] It's like, yeah, even if the straight of Hormuse didn't matter to us and only to Europe, we're the ones that went in and [ __ ] up the straight of Hormuse with Israel.

[00:14:14]So, like in what world would it be fair to be like Europe, this is your mess to clean up?

[00:14:23]We did it.

[00:14:25]And like Europe didn't want to do it.

[00:14:30]They they were they're saying no, don't do it.

[00:14:35]And doing it is what screwed up the straight of Hormuse.

[00:14:40]And for that reason among many others they're like no we don't want to do this.

[00:14:48]So if no one had per if no one had partaken in this war Israel United States that started this war on Iran then the straight of Hormuse would still be open obviously and Europe would be happy about that. So how can you blame Europe for the straight of Hormuse being closed in any way?

[00:15:09]I can barely even like articulate. I can barely even form an argument because it's so dumb. It's so like annoying to even think about. Frankly, it would be like if there was a if you lived in a neighborhood and there's a gang outside the neighborhood, you know, down the street and America comes along and says, "Hey, we're going to go bomb this uh this gang." And you're in the neighborhood, you're like, "No, no, please don't." And then America goes and bombs the gang and they close down that street and you need that street. And America's like, "Well, you should have helped bomb the gang, but but then the street wouldn't have been closed." Like, what are you talking about? That was the weirdest analogy.

[00:15:45]But anyway, um I'll see you guys tomorrow.

[00:15:51]>> [snorts] >> Bye.