In the political talk "maybrit illner" Thomas Gottschalk explained what he thought of Trump and Biden. Both were missing something important, he noted.
There is still no decision on who won the US presidential election. While the vote count continues, TV presenter Thomas Gottschalk (70) and John Bolton (71), Donald Trump's (74) former security advisor, discussed the US election on Thursday evening in the ZDF political talk "maybrit illner". Bolton was certain on the TV show: Trump would leave the White House in the event of defeat – "voluntarily, but not decently".
Thomas Gottschalk, connected from Baden-Baden, emphasized his love for America in the program, but also criticized Bolton for initially supporting Trump and now calling him a danger. The Americans have a "certain naivety" and also "negligence" that makes them very sympathetic, but which even for him, "a light-footed entertainer", is not easy to understand. Gottschalk added: "The Republicans have let Trump off the chain and he has shown them that they have no control over him."
"Trump is like an entertainer"
Gottschalk himself would never dare to go into politics. Trump, on the other hand, is very similar to an entertainer, "only he's a reality star, unlike me". In Trump's former TV show "The Apprentice", he was said to be "a kind of paid reality actor", because he was able to present "the evil that is obviously inherent in him in an entertainment-wise manner". "It's good for television," said Gottschalk, but not for politics, on which millions of people depend. Elsewhere, the moderator said: "I am appalled that a figure like Trump should represent the largest nation in the world."
In addition, Gottschalk said in the panel discussion that politics is becoming more and more complex, more and more difficult to convey, that Trump is not a person "who understands the complex intellectually in order to convey it". Barack Obama was "an intellectual, a philosopher before the Lord". He doesn't see Trump challenger Joe Biden (77) either. He is a "righteous, friendly, elderly gentleman" whom he doesn't trust as much as Trump: "Well, if that's supposed to be the top of American politics, then good night!"
Regarding Joe Biden, Gottschalk also explained that a country like the USA needs "another figure of light at the top". You have to have the feeling with a politician that he is intellectually able to see through things, according to the entertainer, he doesn't see that with Biden or Trump. Biden has "none of the charisma" that distinguished Obama, for example.