News: Stephen Miller, Susie Wiles, Donald Trump, Sébastien Lecornu, Ilse Aigner, Friedrich Merz, Jan Böhmermann, Volodymyr Selenskyj

The Americans took away both congressional majorities from Trump's Republicans on Tuesday and settled with the first two years of his second term in office. The president's consequence of this rejection of his previous administration is apparently to place one of his most radical followers at the head of his staff. Trump claimed on election night that he wanted to work with the Democrats. But Miller's personality suggests that he wants to take a tough course against them.

Publicly, Trump initially seemed relatively calm about the election outcome. But the more he watched the coverage of the historic magnitude of his defeat in recent days, the angrier he became, CNN reports. On election night, Trump had already blamed Wiles for the debacle in front of others, reports the New York Times.

On one point, Miller is apparently pushing for a course correction. According to the New York Times, he said Trump must end the Iran war. His own core supporters see him as a betrayal.

However, Miller does not stand for foreign policy moderation. When Trump threatened to invade Greenland earlier this year, Miller said the U.S. could claim foreign territory if it was in the national interest.

From January, the Democrats will be able to closely control the government with their new majorities in Congress. Representative Robert Garcia, who is expected to chair the House of Representatives' oversight committee, has already announced that he will investigate Miller's role in the deportation operations. "Stephen Miller should get a lawyer," he said.

After twelve men, a woman is to be elected to the highest office in the Federal Republic for the first time: the CSU politician Ilse Aigner. According to SPIEGEL information, the Union and the SPD want to jointly propose her as Federal President. The coalition parties have an absolute majority in the Federal Assembly, which meets on January 30th. Aigner himself advocates including the Greens. Some of them have already signaled support.

Aigner would be an unusual president, as my colleague Sebastian Fischer describes: She trained as a radio and television technician, worked in her parents' business and later helped develop the electrical system for helicopters. She then became Federal Minister, Bavarian Economics Minister and finally President of the State Parliament. She left Horst Seehofer's successor as Prime Minister to Markus Söder. "I don't have the killer instinct," she said.

For Friedrich Merz, the personnel is a defeat. The Chancellor had insisted on his CDU's right to nominate the candidate. But while Merz promised an “orderly process,” Söder consistently campaigned for his party colleague. More and more politicians from the CDU, SPD and Greens joined. Merz is still silent. According to SPIEGEL information, he has now also decided on Aigner. The CDU committees are scheduled to discuss on Monday.

My colleague Marina Kormbaki, deputy head of the SPIEGEL capital office, assesses it as follows in her comment: “The matter got away from the boss. Merz does not dominate the debate about who should take over the highest state office next year. He's driven.” The Chancellor has to agree to a candidate who he couldn't have stopped if he had wanted to. This is not a good sign for his authority.

Marina writes: »Aigner could become a good, popular Federal President. The President of the Bavarian State Parliament has a cheerful, warm-hearted manner, she speaks clearly and understandably, appears unpretentious and close to the people. In short: she has qualities that the Chancellor doesn’t have.”

The whole comment here: A good candidate. Just not his

The French protest movement, founded by schoolchildren and students, is again calling for demonstrations today. It's the fourth Saturday in a row. The leaders speak of the “fourth act.”

The mobilization had initially subsided: on October 17, the Interior Ministry counted 550,000 demonstrators, two weeks later 320,000. But on Thursday, according to official figures, 575,000 people took to the streets again on the union strike day. The CGT union even spoke of almost 1.6 million. The wave of protests has gained new momentum.

In Paris, yellow vests want to demonstrate independently on the Place de la Concorde today, even though the authorities have banned it. Their representatives emphasize that they are concerned with further political demands. So they demand more direct democracy.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has invited unions and employers to a social conference on Monday. The unions expect wage increases. The young people who initiated this movement, on the other hand, are demanding better schools and changes to the controversial Parcoursup university admissions system. A separate meeting is to take place on Monday.

That's the difficulty for the government: the protest movement is now broad and diverse. If the government wants to bring peace to the situation, it has to talk to numerous actors about their respective demands.

More background here: How a sausage seller upholds savoir-vivre in Parisian street battles

If life is too tight, then it's time to change something. That's what the new issue of SPIEGEL WISSEN "Take it easy" is about, which has been out since yesterday: You can gain freedom even in difficult moments and times. How this works is explained in the booklet by philosophers, psychologists and people who have found their way to a self-determined life.

Winner of the day…

...is Jan Böhmermann. A few weeks before his “ZDF Magazine Royale” ends in December, he welcomed a special guest: Volodymyr Selenskyj. The Ukrainian president spoke to the satirist about his hopes after the US election and criticized Elon Musk - despite his country's dependence on his Starlink satellite system.

What was special were the personal moments that Böhmermann created with his guest. He was also once a comedian. When Böhmermann asked Selenskyj when he last cooked for his children. After an emotional pause, he replied that that must have been a very long time ago. Or when the President of Ukraine talked about a pre-war skiing holiday in Ischgl, where he taught his children to ski and listened to James Blunt.

For Zelenskyj, it was an opportunity to reach people who had long since ignored a press conference in the Chancellery. For Böhmermann, the coup comes at the right time. ZDF director Norbert Himmler recently complained that the format had become stale and had perhaps become too fanatical. Now this program in particular causes a surprise that gets the station noticed. My colleague Ulrike Knöfel writes that it is once again Böhmermann's format that "makes ZDF seem less sleepy."

Two mission-conscious people against one “oligarch”