Can Germany’s Far Right Be Stopped?

Can Germany’s Far Right Be Stopped?

From Pod Save the World by Pod Save the World

September 9, 2026 · 1h 37m · Episode 537

About this episode

The episode discusses the rise of the far right in Germany, international political developments, and features an interview with author Lawrence Wright.

The far right gets a huge win in Germany, Serbia celebrates a war criminal, and Nigel Farage gets caught on camera breaking the law. Tommy and Ben dig into the ultra-right-wing AfD party's historic results in a regional election, what drove it, what it would mean if they actually form a coalition government, and what it says about the state of European politics more broadly. Trump’s dumb and dumber team of negotiators (Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff) return from a busy weekend traveling to Moscow meeting with Vladimir Putin, and their first trip to Ukraine to meet with Volodymyr Zelensky on a train they named the “Peace Express.” In Serbia, convicted genocide architect Ratko Mladić is given a funeral fit for a national hero, which doesn’t bode well for the country’s pathway into the EU. The UK's new Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announces a sweeping shift in British policy toward Israeli settlements, and a bombshell Haaretz investigation reveals that Netanyahu received a direct warning from the UAE about a major Hamas attack ten days before October 7th. There are nothing but bad updates in the fallout from the war with Iran, including tit-for-tat strikes, mass polygraph tests at…

People in this episode

Hosts: Tommy, Ben

Guest: Lawrence Wright

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: AfD, Channel 4, Haaretz

Books & works: The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

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