The proprietor of Politico has praised the “inspiring message” of JD Vance’s speech that was met with horror in Europe, as he berated the continent’s politicians for his or her “whiny” response to the US vice-president.
Mathias Döpfner, chief government of Axel Springer, stated many individuals had “deliberately misunderstood” Vance’s handle eventually weekend’s Munich Safety Convention, during which he surprised the viewers by claiming restrictions on freedom of expression in Europe have been a higher risk to the area than Russia or China.
The US vice-president additionally known as for an finish to the political isolation of the far-right simply over every week earlier than German federal elections, during which the Different for Germany (AfD) occasion is anticipated to safe a historic second-place end.
The speech drew a pointy response from main German politicians, together with chancellor Olaf Scholz and opposition chief Friedrich Merz. But Döpfner — a German nationwide who co-owns the Berlin-based media empire — stated Vance’s meant message was that Washington needed to work with Europe however the continent wanted to first outline what it stood for and cease being afraid of its personal folks.
“Actually, I feel it’s an inspiring message,” he instructed the Monetary Occasions. “You don’t need to take the whole lot actually, however it is best to attempt to take it critically. And [the fact] that many of the Europeans simply reacted . . . in a sort of whiny tone — I feel that’s unsmart, it’s unstrategic and it’s even harmful as a result of we want a transatlantic safety alliance and we want a transatlantic commerce relationship.”
US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on EU items and to withdraw safety ensures for the continent.
Döpfner, a self-described contrarian who has railed in opposition to the “enslavement” of so-called woke tradition, additionally performed down the seriousness of Trump’s latest assault on Politico as a “misunderstanding”.
Axel Springer purchased the outlet in 2021 as a part of a push into the US media market.
Trump this month described Politico, which prides itself on political impartiality, as a “leftwing rag” and falsely claimed it had acquired $8mn in funding from the US Company for Worldwide Growth, an organisation the US president has moved to shrink dramatically.
Döpfner stated Trump was muddling subsidies with subscriptions to a business product. “This may solely be a misunderstanding,” he stated. “And I hope that it is going to be clarified.”
However White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt has stated “subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayer’s dime will now not be occurring”.
The US president’s criticism of Politico put Döpfner within the uncommon place of being criticised from the fitting. The Axel Springer chief stated it was “completely apparent” that there was some reality to the declare by Trump and his supporters that there was a leftwing bias inside the mainstream media.
However he stated he hoped the Trump administration’s dedication to free speech would “even be upheld for journalism that you just don’t like”.
“For me, it’s virtually humorous, after two and a half many years being portrayed in Germany because the centre of the rightwing conspiracy, I’m now portrayed in America because the centre of a leftwing conspiracy,” he stated. “Actually, that’s precisely the place the place an impartial writer ought to be.”
Döpfner, 62, is a contentious determine in Germany. Critics, particularly on the left, accuse his tabloid Bild and the conservative broadsheet Die Welt of pursuing a rightwing agenda, together with on migration.
Döpfner was rocked by a scandal 4 years in the past when he was accused of defending a former Bild editor and protégé who confronted allegations of abusing his energy by sleeping with workers and was in the end fired.
In 2023, Döpfner apologised after the publication of leaked personal textual content messages during which he railed in opposition to “illiberal Muslims” and requested the Bild editor to “strengthen” the economically liberal Free Democrats two days earlier than an election.
The previous music journalist — who turned a billionaire in a single day in 2020 when the widow of the corporate’s founder offered him 4 per cent of her shares in Axel Springer, gifted him 15 per cent extra and handed him her voting rights — has a decrease profile within the US regardless of his enlargement into the American market and his seat on the board of Netflix.
However in 2020, he hit the headlines after it emerged he despatched an e-mail to workers inviting them to “pray” for Trump’s re-election — a remark he later stated was “an ironic, provocative assertion within the circle of folks that hate Donald Trump”.
He has additionally courted US tech entrepreneurs together with the Tesla chief government and Trump supporter Elon Musk, who attended his sixtieth birthday celebration in Tuscany.
He despatched textual content messages to Musk urging him to purchase Twitter, now generally known as X, shortly earlier than the Tesla founder’s bid for the platform turned public in 2022.
Döpfner, who has known as for TikTok to be banned in Europe over its hyperlinks to the Chinese language authorities and the proliferation of antisemitic and right-wing extremist views, sidestepped a query about comparable content material on X since Musk’s takeover, saying: “Actually, I can’t choose it,” he stated. “I’m not lively sufficient.”
He additionally addressed long-running hypothesis that he can be concerned with shopping for Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Road Journal, describing it as a “tremendous model” that might tempt him into making a print acquisition, although he performed down the prospect of it arising on the market.
Talking amid hypothesis that Murdoch may search to dump the title to keep away from passing it on to a few of his kids amid a bitter household feud, Döpfner stated he was targeted on his digital portfolio and “typically . . . we might not purchase newspapers”.
However he stated the Journal was one among “two tremendous manufacturers on this planet that I’m very keen about”, with the opposite being the FT, which he tried unsuccessfully to accumulate 10 years in the past.
Döpfner insisted the thought of a bid for the Journal was “extremely theoretical”, including: “In line with my data, the Wall Road Journal is just not on the market.”
He added that, if the title have been to turn out to be accessible, “after all, we might more than likely look into it”.
In a reference to the seemingly excessive price ticket for a paper whose mum or dad firm Murdoch purchased for $5.6bn in 2007, he insisted “the probability that we might actually purchase it, that we might get it, is near zero”.
