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Gut einen Monat nach seinem erneuten Nein zu Steuererhöhungen öffnet Friedrich Merz die Tür einen Spalt. Die Einkommensteuer bleibt tabu, aber die Erbschaftssteuer rückt ins Zentrum. Ein mögliches Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichts könnte Milliarden freisetzen und Union wie SPD in eine Richtung, aber auch in einen Streit treiben.

Im 200-Sekunden-Interview spricht die SPD-Ministerpräsidentin von Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Manuela Schwesig, über Umverteilungen zwischen Bund und Ländern und Spielräume in der Finanzpolitik.
International richtet sich der Blick nach New York: Hans von der Burchard berichtet von der UN-Generalversammlung – zwischen russischen Luftraumverletzungen, klaren Warnungen aus Polen und einem Auftritt von Donald Trump, der das diplomatische Forum erneut zum Polit-Spektakel macht.
Und: Ein politisches Dinner mit Jonathan Martin in Berlin

Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gor..

NEW YORK CITY — President Donald Trump blasted the United Nations in his speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday, complaining about deficiencies inside the organization’s headquarters and asserting that he was singlehandedly engaging in peacemaking efforts because the UN hadn’t done enough.

“What is the purpose of the United Nations?” Trump asked. “It’s not even coming close to living up to that potential.”

In a speech that meandered from complaints about losing out on a contract to renovate the headquarters to recounting what he saw as his foreign policy successes, the president painted a picture of the UN as an outdated, ineffective organization and said he’s worked to end “seven wars” without any help.

UNITED NATIONS — President Donald Trump is not happy with some top U.S. allies’ decision to recognize a Palestinian state at this week’s U.N. General Assembly, and rebuked them in New York for what he described as a “reward” for acts of terrorism by Hamas.

But the administration is not yet matching that rhetoric with action, seemingly freeing allies to deliver a symbolic rebuke of Israel without risk of punishment from the United States.

Top officials in both the United Kingdom and Canada told POLITICO there was scant private pushback from the Trump administration on those countries for embracing Palestinian statehood. In Britain, Trump’s restrained public comments over the summer on the prospect of diplomatic recognition even helped solidify Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s plans to move ahead, according to one senior U.K. official. (“I don’t mind him taking a position,” Trump said of Starmer in July.)

Trump officials have responded to the coordinated recognition of Palestine by Brita..

UNITED NATIONS — President Donald Trump promised Arab leaders during a meeting Tuesday that he would not allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the West Bank, according to six people familiar with the discussion.

Two of those people said Trump was firm on the topic and that the president promised that Israel would not be allowed to absorb the West Bank, which is governed by the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas.

Another one of the people familiar with the talks noted that, despite Trump’s assurance, a ceasefire to end Israel’s nearly two-year war against Hamas was nowhere close to fruition. Two others familiar with the matter said Trump and his team presented a white paper outlining the administration’s plan to end the war, including the annexation promise and other details such as governance and postwar security.

Trump told reporters ahead of his sit-down with eight Arab countries at the United Nations headquarters that it was his “most important” of the day, but h..

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron’s shock announcement last week of France’s plans to recognize a Palestinian state seemed like a failed gambit at first.

The United States and Israel torched the move. Reaction domestically split across party lines as expected.

But fast-forward a week and it’s clear Macron was ahead of the curve. The United Kingdom and Canada have both followed France’s lead, albeit with caveats, and Germany appears to be inching closer to rein in its historically staunch support for Israel unless it does more to end the humanitarian catastrophe playing out in Gaza.

The shift in favor of recognition may be of little solace to those on the brink of famine in Gaza, but it’s clear that Macron was at the forefront of Western Europe’s push in favor of this historical demand of the Palestinian people.

“This is definitively a French moment,” said Hamza Hraoui, the director of the Paris-based global public affairs firm MGH Partners. “It’s a point scored for French d..

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Wer regiert die Welt – und was treibt sie an?
In unserem Sommer-Spezial geht es um die mächtigsten und umstrittensten Politikerinnen und Politiker unserer Zeit. Wir zeigen, wie sie denken, entscheiden – und was das für uns bedeutet. Ein Politiker pro Tag, ein Blick hinter die Kulissen der Macht.
In der Machthaber-Serie:

04.08.2025 – Wladimir Putin
05.08.2025 – Marine Le Pen
06.08.2025 – Javier Milei
07.08.2025 – Xi Jinping
08.08.2025 – Giorgia Meloni
11.08.2025 – Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
12.08.2025 – Benjamin Netanjahu
13.08.2025 – Narendra Modi
14.08.2025 – Friedrich Merz
15.08.2025 – Mohammed bin Salman
16.08.2025 – Ursula von der Leyen
Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig.

Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis:
Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Je..

Listen on

Spotify

Apple Music

Amazon Music

Wer regiert die Welt – und was treibt sie an? In unserem Sommer-Spezial geht es um die mächtigsten und umstrittensten Politikerinnen und Politiker unserer Zeit. Wir zeigen, wie sie denken, entscheiden – und was das für uns bedeutet. Ein Politiker pro Tag, ein Blick hinter die Kulissen der Macht.

In der Machthaber-Serie:

04.08.2025 – Wladimir Putin
05.08.2025 – Marine Le Pen
06.08.2025 – Javier Milei
07.08.2025 – Xi Jinping
08.08.2025 – Giorgia Meloni
11.08.2025 – Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
12.08.2025 – Benjamin Netanjahu
13.08.2025 – Narendra Modi
14.08.2025 – Friedrich Merz
15.08.2025 – Mohammed bin Salman
16.08.2025 – Ursula von der Leyen

Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig.

Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis:
Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. ..

LONDON — JD Vance is on a summer break in Britain. He’s not always been such a fan.

Donald Trump’s second-in-command hasn’t exactly been shy in expressing what he really thinks about the U.K. over the years, branding it an “Islamist” hellhole bent on ending free speech. But apart from that!

As he holidays in the idyllic Cotswolds (dubbed the “Hamptons of England“) — including a stay at U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s taxpayer-funded country pile — Vance will see if his pontificating from afar matches reality.

POLITICO runs through five occasions where Vance did not hold back in his assault on old Blighty.

1) Britain is an “Islamist country”

Vance made this outburst before Trump selected him as his VP pick. Last July, the then-Ohio senator called the U.K. an “Islamist country” after Labour ousted the Conservatives from Downing Street.

Speaking at the National Conservatism Conferencein Washington, D.C., Vance recounted a conversation with a friend about the dangers of nuclea..

As the Trump administration identified pro-Palestinian academics to target for deportation, it relied heavily on an anonymously-run pro-Israel website that has been criticized for doxxing, according to newly unsealed court documents and testimony at an ongoing trial.

To support President Donald Trump’s deportation drive, the Department of Homeland Security assembled a “tiger team” of intelligence analysts who built dossiers on about 100 foreign students and scholars engaged in pro-Palestinian activity, the records show.

More than 75 of those people were identified by the shadowy website Canary Mission, according to deposition testimony unveiled this week in a case challenging the Trump administration’s targeting of pro-Palestinian scholars.

The federal judge currently overseeing a trial in the case unsealed the deposition transcripts, which contain hundreds of pages of sworn testimony by administration officials about the campus deportation effort. Some of the details in the transcr..

The European Union and Israel have reached a deal to expand humanitarian aid entering Gaza, the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas announced Thursday.

“This deal means more crossings open, aid and food trucks entering Gaza, repair of vital infrastructure and protection of aid workers. We count on Israel to implement every measure agreed,” Kallas said.

The measures will be implemented in the coming days, making sure that aid is delivered directly to the local population and that there is no aid diverted to militant group Hamas, Commission spokesperson Anouar El Anouni said at a media briefing.

The measures Israel and the EU agreed upon include an increase of daily trucks for food, fuel and other items entering Gaza, the opening of several other crossing points in both the northern and southern areas, the reopening of the Jordanian and Egyptian aid routes, as well as the distribution of food supplies through bakeries and public kitchens throughout the Gaza Strip.

Israel blocked all food d..