President Donald Trump congratulated a far-right German political party after it declared victory in a state election.
Trump, 80, celebrated the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Truth Social after preliminary results showed the anti-immigrant, pro-Russia populists won nearly 44 percent of the vote in the small eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday.
“Wow! The Populist Party in Germany just had a really big night,” Trump wrote on Tuesday. “They finally got rid of the absolutely horrible Immigration rules and regulations which have hurt Germany so badly.”
“THEY ARE ON THE RISE, and not going to take it anymore! MGGA!!!” he added.
The president’s post raised eyebrows online, with some noting the absurdity of Trump supporting what could become Germany’s first far-right-led state government since World War II.
Tuesday’s message comes two days after Trump posted a screenshot of German television projections showing AfD with a commanding lead in the regional election.
Though the far-right party won Sunday’s regional election in a state formerly part of communist East Germany, it still fell short of an absolute majority in the state parliament needed to form a government.
Ulrich Siegmund, the party’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, said that they “made history in this country” with their win on Sunday, according to Reuters.
National polls show that AfD, created in 2013, is currently the country’s most popular party, polling 8 percentage points ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives, Reuters reported.
The party’s agenda focuses on deporting immigrants, restoring ties with Russia, and ending support for Ukraine, as well as whitewashing the country’s Nazi-era past in school curricula.
Its policies also include abandoning the euro and withdrawing Germany from the European Union, though those fall outside a state government’s jurisdiction.
Merz, the Christian Democratic Union leader whose approval rating has hit record lows, has refused to cooperate with the AfD as part of a strategy known as the “firewall.” However, he noted that the party’s win on Sunday had shaken his party “to its very foundations,” according to Reuters.
Alice Weidel, who co-chairs the AfD alongside Tino Chrupalla, said the party hopes to win at least 40 percent in the 2029 national election following its victory Sunday.
Reuters reported that AfD voters skewed male and were, demographically, less educated and less economically secure.
Germany’s domestic intelligence service classified the party as right-wing extremist in May 2025, citing its “ethnicity- and ancestry-based” philosophies as being “incompatible with the free democratic order.”
