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Fact-checking Donald Trump during the presidential debate did not end with the moderators. On Wednesday, the German Foreign Office posted on X mocking the former president while clarifying a statement he made about energy in Germany.
On Tuesday evening, Trump criticized Harris’s clean energy approaches like reducing fracking and fossil fuel emissions. He claimed those policies do not work and cited Germany as an example.
“You believe in things like we’re not going to frack, we’re not going to take fossil fuel, we’re not going to do things that are going to make this country strong whether you like it or not,” Trump said.
“Germany tried that and within one year they were back to building normal energy plants. We’re not ready for it. We can’t sacrifice our country for the sake of bad vision,” Trump added.
But Germany refuted that claim, telling the former president, “Like it or not: Germany’s energy system is fully operational, with more than 50 % renewables. And we are shutting down – not building – coal & nuclear plants. Coal will be off the grid by 2038 at the latest.”
But they didn’t leave it there and went a step further to take a dig at the former president for repeating a debunked conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating pets.
“PS: We also don’t eat cats and dogs,” they wrote.
Germany, known for its green initiatives, has been working toward transitioning the country to a low-carbon economy. It set a goal to end fossil fuel heating systems by 2045.
But they have faced setbacks over the last few years when they, controversially, chose to shut down their remaining three nuclear power plants last year and faced potential energy shortage issues at the start of the Ukraine–Russia war.
This meant Germany had to rely more on its coal-powered plants longer than anticipated to avoid a catastrophic shortage and starve-off price increases.
But the country has not built any new coal plants and continues to shut down some each year.
In response to the German Foreign Office’s fact-check, some Trump allies criticized the nation for supposedly interfering in the presidential debate.
Richard Grenell, Trump’s former U.S. ambassador to Germany, accused the German government of “election interference.”
