Overview
- Around 20 AfD lawmakers from the Bundestag, European Parliament and state legislatures are in Washington and New York for talks with Republicans and to attend a New York Young Republican Club gala.
- Markus Frohnmaier is slated to be honored Saturday with the club’s Allen W. Dulles Award, according to an invitation he confirmed as authentic.
- The Bundestagsverwaltung and an AfD spokesman confirmed the trip is financed from AfD parliamentary funds, with about €57,000 budgeted for eight Bundestag MPs and total costs potentially exceeding €100,000 when state deputies are included.
- CDU/CSU figures condemned the trip as “Anti-Germany diplomacy” and urged the Bundestagsverwaltung to examine whether travel rules for faction trips are being misused.
- Planned appointments include a meeting with Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, and the New York Young Republican Club’s recent controversies over racist and antisemitic messages have intensified scrutiny of the AfD’s hosts.