TV review Maybrit Illner: Olaf Scholz is no longer a consolation donor

TV debate

Maybrit Illner
The TV consultation hour shows: Olaf Scholz is no longer a consolation donor

07/08/2022, 06:38

3 min reading time

Olaf Scholz came to Maybrit Illner to answer questions from citizens. He did, but he couldn’t spread much confidence with the answers. The guests also had more worries than fit into the 67 minutes.

The summer break will soon be in Berlin, and if 2022 were a halfway normal year, the small and large excitements of political life would now calm down for a few weeks. However, 2022 is not a halfway normal year and so Maybrit Illner closed her last show for the time being with the unedifying words: “We agree in the group that we live in very dramatic times.”

“That’s so many topics together”

Before that, she sat for 67 minutes with her top guest, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and the panel of five citizens. People came with questions and concerns, and probably nobody expected that after this evening all problems would be solved. But not even a lot of confidence or something like an aha moment were in it. “There are now so many issues together,” said the head of government at one point. He didn’t seem overwhelmed, but rather annoyed.

The guests at Maybrit Illner:

“War, Corona, climate – one crisis too many, Mr. Chancellor?” The editors called their program, as if Olaf Scholz had voluntarily shouldered all the problems. During the program it became apparent that there were a bunch more There are shoes that push people: poverty, pensions, salaries, corporate taxes, national debt, etc. A lot is somehow related to everything, “complicated to get out” is all, said Maybrit Illner, which is why the public question hour also quickly unraveled and in the end not only the guests left something helpless.

Olaf Scholz: No solution today

At the beginning, the head of government made a friendly effort to explain the complicated connections. Nor did he hide his own light under a bushel. There was even a little encouragement, although he usually had little to say that was edifying. When the Stiebling couple, who were facing ruin, wanted to know what to do in view of the “horrendous energy and raw material prices”, Scholz said: “The first goal is for energy prices not to explode quite so much”. But that doesn’t happen overnight.

He didn’t have much more to offer. And the latter, more sighed than claimed, applied to most of the topics that evening, such as climate change. Enter Rifka Lamprecht. The student clearly enjoyed reminding the SPD man of his climate promises and bullying him in other ways. “I don’t share your views on the climate crisis.” “I would like to disagree with you, if I may,” the Chancellor then replied, becoming increasingly angry as the discussion progressed.

Not only since the man from Hamburg has been in the chancellor’s office has he had a reputation for noncommittal aloofness. He used to be the “Scholzomat”, meanwhile Scholz seems more accessible, but only if he wants to. And that hasn’t always been the case lately. In times of crisis like these, there is a lot to explain, to classify, to calm down and maybe even to human. After all: Scholz tries. A few days ago in the ARD summer interview, then in Question Time in the Bundestag and now with Maybrit Illner.

Too much detail isn’t good either

Illner’s ZDF colleague Markus Lanz once said about the chancellor’s self-control: “He seems as if he has a ‘second brain wave’ that monitors everything the first one does.” Again, there were moments that showed why Scholz’s style doesn’t go down so often: if the interlocutors simplify too much, like the student Lamprecht, he almost reacts personally offended. When he’s criticized, like by Intensive Care Nurse Berning or the Stieblings, he erects a wall of detail. Scholz’ strength of being able to report in detail on every problem has the disadvantage that it only makes it clear how complex and time-consuming the solution is. It’s nothing for the soul.