Merkel’s Successor Has Some Explaining to Do in Washington
- Laschet suggested Obama backed Islamic State in Syria
- Merkel’s CDU can’t afford new misstep with elections ahead
This article is for subscribers only.
Supporters of the man who may become Germany’s next leader raced to defend him, after his unorthodox foreign policy views raised questions about his credentials to succeed Angela Merkel.
The newly-elected leader of Merkel’s Christian Democrats, Armin Laschet, incorrectly tweeted in 2016 that the Obama administration had backed the militant Islamic State in Syria. Two years earlier, after Russia’s incursion into Crimea, Laschet criticized a wave of “marketable anti-Putin populism” spreading across Germany.