When U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance took the stage at the Munich Security Conference, most people were expecting him to hold forth on the topics that had animated the huddles and discussions around the venue leading up to his speech: European defense spending and the fate of Ukraine.
But those subjects only got a passing sentence each. Instead, Vance spent the bulk of his 20 minutes on stage criticizing what he characterized as a European retreat from the West’s “shared democratic values” driven by excessive censorship of free speech. “Unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners,” he said.
When U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance took the stage at the Munich Security Conference, most people were expecting him to hold forth on the topics that had animated the huddles and discussions around the venue leading up to his speech: European defense spending and the fate of Ukraine.
But those subjects only got a passing sentence each. Instead, Vance spent the bulk of his 20 minutes on stage criticizing what he characterized as a European retreat from the West’s “shared democratic values” driven by excessive censorship of free speech. “Unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners,” he said.
For Europeans and others watching, Vance had a MAGA message: “In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town, and under [U.S. President] Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square,” he said, to scattered and hesitant applause—one of the few times he got any.
The U.S. vice president also spoke at length about the alleged threat posed by immigration, a major right-wing talking point on both sides of the Atlantic that he described as the most “urgent” challenge the nations represented in Munich face. Most of the speech was met with stunned silence. “Gobsmacked” was a word used repeatedly in the aftermath, and SitRep overheard one attendee walking out of the Bayerischer Hof describe the speech as “utterly, utterly frightening.”
Read more in today’s Situation Report: Vance Leaves Europe Gobsmacked, and sign up for the newsletter to follow along at the Munich Security Conference.
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