I have great respect for press freedoms. At the same time, however, a politician also has the freedom to decide whether he or she will accept an invitation to appear on a show or not.

For my part, in everything I do, I aim to strengthen democracy in Germany and beyond. The United States is also a strong democracy. As we are seeing in Poland, for example, and also in Hungary, it is important that we have counterweights in democratic systems, and I believe they are still strong in America.

We were able to conclude a Paris climate agreement, which will lead the way for the rest of the world, which is groundbreaking. And together with the sustainable development goals of the agenda 2030 for the whole world, this is indeed a sea change, I think, that we see here, and, step-by-step, it will be implemented.

There's a rumour going around that states cannot go bankrupt. This rumour is not true.

We have very stable mechanisms of conflict resolution in terms of labor relations, we have a very good transportation infrastructure, we provide our children with an excellent education and the gap between rich and poor in Germany is relatively narrow. On the other hand, we have trouble accepting change.

A good compromise is one where everybody makes a contribution.

I'm very grateful that Barack Obama as president very much put protection of privacy on the agenda today, due to the fact of Islamist terrorism all over the world.