Caroline van der Plas finds it exaggerated that Renze Klamer calls her working method ‘dangerous’. “Well, dangerous, dangerous. I think you’re exaggerating a lot.”
Renze Klamer had Caroline van der Plas at his talk show table last night to look back on the past year. He accuses her of practicing populism and feeding distrust in the government, but the politician thinks that is not justified. That is why the two had a small difference of opinion live in his broadcast on RTL 4.
Renze critically
During the conversation, Renze mentions a Nieuwsuur broadcast from last June as an example. “A professor of nitrogen sciences Leen Hordijk was sitting there at the time, and then you called out in the House of Representatives whether the cabinet had any influence on the fact that he would be there.”
Too bad, says Renze. “You should know: there are people who sometimes ask me if I get a call from Mark Rutte about what I should do on the broadcast tonight. That’s something that lives. Apparently some people think that we get direct instructions from the government. Total nonsense. And a comment like that kind of feeds that thought.”
“This is dangerous!”
Such a comment from Caroline is reprehensible, says Renze. “It can be a little playful, but still… That’s dangerous. That can be dangerous.”
Caroline thinks that Renze is taking very big steps. “Well, dangerous, dangerous. Then I think you’re exaggerating a lot. Dangerous… No. Mr. Hordijk had previously given a very large interview to an agricultural newspaper and in Nieuwsuur he had a much milder story than what he had said in that newspaper.”
She continues: “Then I wondered: how does that work?”
‘Not anti-government’
Caroline can ‘imagine that the cabinet thinks: we should also twist that story a bit’. “But if Nieuwsuur says: ‘That’s not the case’, then it isn’t. Do you understand what I mean? Yes, but Renze, it is immediately pretended that you are anti-government and: oh, you do not believe the science, oh, you are against the media.”
Renze: “Yes, but asking a question is not completely free, so if you ask yourself, you will already achieve a certain effect with that question.”
Caroline: “If I say ‘It is and the media is all rotten’, I didn’t say that, did I?”
Populism
Renze is not convinced. He continues to think that Caroline should formulate her statements better. “Doesn’t it sometimes rub against populism? This is an aspect of which I think: is that really smart?”
