Lars Klingbeil has to smile. He is not prepared for this question. "Why are you so cool?" the moderator wanted to know from him at a public discussion in Oldenburg. The question comes from the audience. She flatters him a lot, says Klingbeil, but he's 44 years old and, well, "not cool at all." The 50 or so people in the theater laugh.

The SPD chairman can do self-mockery. Even in these times. In which the pressure on the traffic light to fight rising gas prices is growing, Olaf Scholz is (once again) criticized for not wanting to deliver battle tanks to Ukraine and the SPD (once again) has to cope with poor poll results.

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