Angela Merkel Dodges Question About Trump’s ‘Approval of Nazi Generals’: ‘I Never Heard This’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
Amanpour: “Can I ask you, just Popped into my head. His former chief of staff John Kelly, who was a marine general he actually said that Donald Trump had expressed interest approval of Nazi generals. Does that surprise you that he would say something like that?”

MERKEL: “Honestly speaking, I never heard this and I wouldn‘t want to make any comment on this. I said that he was fascinated not too much codetermination as it were, or to many other people having a say. He wanted to be the person who makes the judgment and the call. But I think if you approach once you approached him without any fear and with clear a clear cut strategy, he listened and I think he smells when people are a little bit afraid of him. And when you‘re not, then you can enter into good talks with him.”

Amanpour: “And you were not?”

MERKEL: “Chancellor of the federal republic of Germany. I mean, we‘re not a negligible country. We have our own interests, our own vested interests. And I was always guided by these national interests. I think the United States of America are such an important power, a superpower but we in Europe are also important. the United States of America cannot do things on their own completely. We have an alliance. We have NATO together. So this is not just something where we owe something to the Americans as Donald Trump quite often said. But the United States of America, too, must have a vested interest or should have a vested interest. At least that would be my advice, because when we stand together we‘re simply stronger. And there are so many in the in the world who do not want—“