German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is stonewalling President Donald Trump after the U.S. leader celebrated the victory of a party the chancellor claims is promoting “ethnic cleansing.”

Merz publicly confronted the Alternative for Deutschland in a parliamentary debate on Wednesday, just days after the right-wing party won a whopping 44% of the vote in the state election of Saxony-Anhalt — blowing away Merz’s party, which secured just 17%. AfD is running a campaign centrally focused on expelling illegal immigrants from the country.