Germany hits back at Rubio's defense of far-right AfD party
'We have learnt from our history that right-wing extremism needs to be stopped,' Germany's foreign office wrote on X, in direct reply to Rubio.
AfD, whose staunch supporters include Vice President JD Vance and billionaire Elon Musk, was already under surveillance for suspected extremism by Germany's intelligence services, which on Friday classified the party as a 'proven right-wing extremist organization.'
Rubio, who on Friday became the acting national security adviser for President Donald Trump, pushed back on the designation, calling the move 'tyranny in disguise,' in a post on X Friday. 'Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition.'
'That's not democracy,' Rubio said.
To that, Germany's foreign office replied, 'This is democracy.'
The rise of AfD, which made huge gains in Germany's general elections in February and finished second, has been part of a surge of the far right in Europe, whose proponents have forged close ties with Trump's White House.
AfD's co-leader, Alice Weidel, called her party's electoral gains a 'glorious success,' alarming large swaths of a country deeply aware of its Nazi past.
Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, the country's intelligence agency, said the party 'aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society.' AfD also does not consider German nationals with a history of migration from Muslim countries as equal to German people, the agency said in its Friday statement.
Weidel's response to the designation aligned with Rubio's criticism, accusing the agency of advancing the ruling government's political interests.
'Since the AfD is the strongest party in polls now, they want to suppress the opposition & freedom of speech,' she said in a post on X.
The German foreign office said the classification was a result of a "thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law."
Under Weidel, AfD has moved from the fringes to a swift-rising movement winning its first regional elections and garnering support from the Trump administration.
The party promotes a populist economy policy of large tax cuts and steep public spending, fosters strong anti-immigrant sentiments, and champions traditional family values, including opposing gay marriange though Weidel herself raises two sons with her Sri Lankan-born female partner, Sarah Bossard.
Weidel has been able to harness a nationalist, anti-E.U sentiment along with hostilities against Muslims and foreigners, to build a stronghold for the party in the regions that once made up East Germany, where skepticism for NATO and Germany's support for Ukraine are among the strongest in the country.
Vance, and Musk followed Rubio in his criticism, with the Vice President saying the AfD was the "most popular party in Germany and by far the most representative of East Germany."
'The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt — not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment,' Vance said in a post on X.
Banning the AfD "would be an extreme attack on democracy,' Musk in a post on X said, calling the party "centrist" and repeating Vance's claims that it was Germany's "most popular party."
AfD, and Weidel herself, have denied allegations of extremism, though the party's co-founder Alexander Gauland once dismissed Hitler's dictatorship as a 'speck of bird poop' and its top candidate, Maximilian Krah, said the SS, the Nazis' main paramilitary force, were 'not all criminals.'
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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