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az: Mr. Küppersbusch, what was bad last week?
Friedrich Küppersbusch: Russia claims a ceasefire in Ukraine.
taz: And what gets better in this one?
Küppersbusch: Ceasefire takes place.
taz: Do you listen to hip hop? How did they find it? the performance of Nicki Minaj and Trump?
Küppersbusch: You’re lovely. Now I have to let Boomer celebrate old Springsteen and diss the comparatively young woman Minaj. But there is no other way. She perfumed Trump with a few adoring sentences at an event surrounding his “accounts”: Children receive a small stock portfolio when they are born. Completely surprisingly, this is called the “Trump Account”. To finance it, his “Big Beautiful Bill” eliminated health care programs, social benefits and federal hunger relief. So about everything that Minaj could have benefited from as a five-year-old illegal immigrant from Trinidad. She had fled poverty, she wrote in 2018 – back then against Trump. This suggests why, for some, Trumpism is not a break: America’s fight against poverty is about getting rich.
taz: Federal Minister of Economics Katherina Reiche expects economic growth of one percent for this year – and even 1.3 percent for next year. Does that make you optimistic?
Küppersbusch: If it pays well – gladly. That’s fucking market economy. So – rich people might need that. She complains about the success of her own government, which makes the FDP feel really bad: It’s all a crisis, and that’s why we need later retirement, less part-time work, less social stuff. Now people are spitting on the hands again, for example those of the unemployed and beggars. Chancellor Merz’s self-hypnosis to simply buy the signal upturn on credit installments fails because of his own minister’s dark thinking: If the economy is going well, it’s because of the economy. If not, it’s someone else’s fault. Find the error. For an additional charge, of course.
taz: The teachers strike for better paynext week local transport workers will be joining in in many places. What do you think about the fact that there are more strikes again?
Küppersbusch: Logical. From 2020 to 2024, wages and salaries fell in real terms: Corona, energy prices, inflation. That changed in 2025, but purchasing power is still lower today than it was in 2019. Sorry for all the numbers, but someone has to pay. At the moment the employees are doing it.
taz: The strikers do not show solidarity with the people of Iran, Gaza, Ukraine or the anti-ICE protests in the USA. In your opinion, should they do this?
Küppersbusch: Don’t we want to keep the “general strike” shot warm for the day when the AfD gets government power?
taz: The mayor of Minneapolis wants ICE employees to move out of the city. How do you see that?
Küppersbusch: Faithful German. It is now rampant in the USA Comparisons between ICE and the Gestapo. With the internal point that the parents of the Basic Law in Article 30 of the Basic Law left the “state powers and tasks (…) a matter for the states”. As a lesson from the Reich-wide terror of the “secret state police”. This spreads the risk – but does not eliminate it. In some state police departments there were Nazi chat groups, and bad attacks happened. The federal states supply data to the ailing US system via “Palantir”. But: In our case, the states would have to request a federal police force. So it’s the other way around than in the USA. This can invite us to remain vigilant against the rampant growth of the “federal police”. With 55,000 employees, it is now one of the largest “security authorities” in Germany – but it is not even provided for in the constitution. Sure, the comparison is flawed, but that’s not why you should shoot him in the back. You should never.
taz: We now hear that the regime in Iran is responsible for around 30,000 deaths. What do you think will happen next in Iran?
Küppersbusch: The American human rights activist Donald Trump is whispering about another “deal” that would involve the Iranian nuclear program, ballistic missiles and the “proxies”, i.e. terrorist groups in the region supported by Iran. Moderate US sources also agree that the president used military threats to prevent 800 planned executions. Otherwise, people are left wondering what Trump’s “massive armada” around Iran could do – for the people in the country, for “regime change”. The Americans may also be puzzling.
taz: And what is RWE doing?
Küppersbusch: “Hate Katte, just two more” – for the club’s birthday yesterday, ticket holders could take a maximum of two fans into the stadium for free. Congratulations!
Questions: Raweel Nasir
Friedrich Küppersbusch is a journalist, producer and optimistic.