{"id":427431,"date":"2025-09-15T23:13:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/427431\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T23:13:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:13:14","slug":"top-afd-politician-makes-surprise-visit-to-white-house-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/427431\/","title":{"rendered":"Top AfD politician makes surprise visit to White House \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The pair met with officials from the U.S. National Security Council, the State Department and Vance\u2019s office, the people said. An AfD official, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, said they did not meet with the vice president.<\/p>\n<p>A White House official confirmed the meeting and said that representatives of the national security council, the vice president\u2019s office and the State Department attended.<\/p>\n<p>The talks focused on democratic participation and election procedures in Germany, according to the AfD and White House officials. Paul, whose candidacy was disqualified by a German court earlier this year, was presented as a case study in what the AfD describes as the narrowing of political freedoms in Germany.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At the Munich Security Conference in February, Vance raised eyebrows by questioning Germany\u2019s political \u201cfirewall\u201d against the AfD, a political agreement by other forces not to include the far-right party in governance. Mainstream parties say the policy is intended to avoid a repeat of country\u2019s Nazi era.<\/p>\n<p>In a speech focused on democratic representation, Vance argued that excluding the far-right party from dialogue undermines voter legitimacy. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/german-olaf-scholz-jd-vance-slams-support-far-right-interference-outsiders-munich-security-conference\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cThere is no place for firewalls,\u201d Vance said<\/a>, in comments interpreted by most as referring to German politics. Later, in Munich, Vance went a step further by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/02\/14\/jd-vance-afd-meeting-019130\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">holding a meeting with AfD co-leader Alice Weidel<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-2234395765-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7166412\"  \/>Accompanying Beatrix von Storch was Joachim Paul who is contesting a mayoral race in the town of Ludwigshafen but was struck from the ballot amid legal disputes. | Ying Tang\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The meetings also touched on the case of Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of Brazil\u2019s former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was last week imprisoned for 27 years for attempting a coup following his loss in Brazil\u2019s 2022 election. Eduardo, a federal deputy in Brazil\u2019s Congress who <a href=\"https:\/\/g1.globo.com\/politica\/blog\/andreia-sadi\/post\/2025\/09\/15\/integrantes-da-primeira-turma-do-stf-esperam-julgar-eduardo-bolsonaro-ate-o-fim-do-ano.ghtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">also faces criminal charges<\/a> and is living in the U.S. under self-imposed exile, has built close ties with right-wing networks in the United States and Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The pair met with officials from the U.S. National Security Council, the State Department and Vance\u2019s office, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[145815,30,32,33,2000,299,1105,11070,1824,6717,49],"class_list":{"0":"post-427431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-beatrix-von-storch","9":"tag-courts","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-elections","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-far-right","15":"tag-german-politics","16":"tag-germany","17":"tag-transatlantic-relations","18":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115210853230836940","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}