We never thought we’d care about what happens at POLITICO, a Beltway gossip blog located many, many floors below the Washington Free Beacon. But then we learned about Mathias Döpfner.
Towering over the competition at a Glenn Youngkinesque 6 feet 7 inches, the chief executive of the German publishing house Axel Springer caused a stir when his company acquired POLITICO in 2021. The uproar came mostly due to an email Döpfner sent weeks before the 2020 election to his executive team:
“Do we all want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?”
Döpfner went on to detail all the reasons Trump was worth praying for. In fact, Döpfner said Trump was right about nearly everything important, including standing up to China and Russia, advancing peace in the Middle East, and making NATO freeloaders pay up.
And that’s not all. Unlike other rightwing German strongmen, Döpfner is staunchly pro-Israel. Following a wave of anti-Semitic riots in Germany last year, Döpfner ordered an Israeli flag be flown outside his company’s headquarters. When some of his staff objected, Döpfner let them have it:
“I’m being very frank with you: A person who has an issue with an Israeli flag being raised for one week here, after antisemitic demonstrations, should look for a new job.”
This shouldn’t have come as a surprise to the team, since Israel’s right to exist is one of the…
