Ines Pohl

That was the key formula.

It's no longer working, and now that Boris Pistorius, the German defense minister, finally got that second appointment with Pete Hegseth in Washington, went over there to visit him, um, the question of course is, is this about more of a big deal, or is this really about rebuilding, firming up, shoring up, call it what you like, an alliance and trying to save NATO? And we'll talk about that with Nina Horcher, our chief political correspondent who's traveling with the German defense minister, and Ines Pohl, our Washington bureau chief who's in and out of the White House and interpreting those comments for us, uh, all year round.

But first, I want to get to some of the questions that you've been sending to us, and those are about what is at this moment in time pretty much just rumors here flying around in Berlin.

Friedrich Merz just canceled his planned trip to New York just days after that next round of regional elections we're expecting here.

There are some strange dynamics going on there in terms of demographics as well, because the region has lost half a million people since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

We've also got Ines Pohl, our Washington correspondent.

The turnout was very high on Sunday's election on a percentage basis, as El Pais noted.

There are very, very smart people here in the US supporting this movement from all different kinds of groups, you know, from... from the money elites, from religious groups.