Markus Lanz’s talk show is sometimes a strange show. It often starts very late, yesterday Wednesday, for example, it didn’t start until 11.30 p.m. And it was again the case that three possibly quite interesting guests sat around smiling until well after midnight, but in silence, because Lanz preferred to dedicate the beginning and most of the airtime to a man who you see all the time on television: Markus Söder.
On Tuesday, the press conference of the Bavarian Prime Minister was broadcast live on ntv, in the evening he was first interviewed in the heute journal, then in the daily topics. Söder called for stricter regulations for travelers returning due to the corona pandemic, which not only secured him further attention in the morning broadcasts on Wednesday, but also the lead story of the daily news in the evening. And the invitation to Markus Lanz. If successful screen presence were paid out in coins, like on a slot machine, Söder would have jumbled all of his pockets on these two days.
When Söder was last with Lanz a few months ago, he wanted to be a candidate for chancellor from the CDU and CSU. He didn’t say that at the time, but he sweated it out of every pore. Meanwhile, Armin Laschet is the candidate for chancellor, and Söder seems constantly dissatisfied. This is also the point at which Lanz repeatedly pulls out the lever on Wednesday evening to make the gap even more visible as possible. There is nothing that the moderator does not list: From Söder’s warning of an election campaign in the “sleeping car” to the differences in tax cuts, the much more decisive urging of the CSU boss to vaccinate to his dissatisfaction with a certain lack of ambition in the Union’s election program. Again and again Lanz Söder asks to please explain these differences.
Now you can find a lot of criticism in Markus Söder, but he’s not stupid. And even if he likes to hear himself talking at all times, on this evening he doesn’t primarily live from what he says himself, but from the moderator’s questions. By reading out all the more or less obvious taunts of Söder against Laschet from the past few days, Lanz reproduces Söder’s negative drawing of the candidate for chancellor without the CSU boss having to do it himself. This is very practical for Söder because nothing is lost of what he has to complain about in Laschet, but he can appease himself and present himself as a reasonably loyal follower. Instead of distancing himself, Söder honestly emphasizes where he particularly supports Laschet. Instead of attacking his own husband, he prefers demonstratively to tackle Greens and Free voters.
While a moderator usually uses the guests to gain attention and perhaps even meaning for his program and ultimately himself, this time Söder instrumentalizes the moderator as a guest. He lets Markus Lanz throw the dirt, he himself gives the street sweeper who sweeps everything clean with his broom. This culminates in sentences like: “Every appeal I make always goes to all of us, including me.” The only thing left to say to the moderator is that he does not really believe this harmony from his guest, which Söder dutifully expresses his astonishment, although of course that is exactly his secret hope.
As I said, it is sometimes a strange show, this talk show by Markus Söder, uh, Lanz.