In his first major speech on the international stage, Vice President JD Vance criticized European leaders for allowing mass migration and extreme laws censoring speech, remarking that he worries more about Europe’s “threats from within” than from external threats like Russia and China.
“While the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine … the threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor,” said Vance.
“What I worry about is the threat from within – the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.”
The vice president’s confrontational remarks at the Munich Security Conference apparently surprised many officials who were expecting him to focus his remarks on Ukraine and Russia.
Instead, Vance called them out for embracing authoritarian policies and using “ugly Soviet era words like misinformation and disinformation” to enact laws marginalizing populist voters.
As an example of Europe’s draconian attacks on on free speech, the veep cited a recent egregious case in Great Britain: “A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith Conner, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and an Army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own,” Vance recounted. “After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply, it was on behalf of the unborn son.”
Vance said the man was “found guilty of breaking the government’s new buffer zone law which criminalizes silent prayer and other actions” that could influence a woman’s decision to have an abortion within 200 yards of an abortion clinic. The man ended up having to “pay thousands of pounds to the prosecution” for praying.
In an even more extreme example of government overreach, Vance noted that Scottish officials recently distributed letters to citizens who reside within so-called safe access zones, “warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law.”
Vance noted with disgust that the Scottish officials even encouraged citizens to report on anyone guilty of committing “thought crimes.”
“In Britain, and across Europe, I fear free speech is in retreat,” the vice president lamented.
Vance also denounced Romania’s recent cancellation of presidential election results over accusations of Russian disinformation. “If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with,” he said. “I’d ask my European friends to have some perspective.”
“Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There’s no room for firewalls,” he added.
Vance also touched on pressing issue of mass migration in Europe, which has dramatically changed demographics in European cities and led to increases in both crime and terrorism.
“We know this situation didn’t materialize in a vacuum, it’s the result of a series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over the continent and others across the world over the span of a decade,” he said.
The vice president highlighted the Thursday attack in Munich where an Afghan national drove a car into a crowd, injuring at least 30 people, and yelled “Allahu Akbar” when he was detained.
“We saw the horrors wrought by these decisions yesterday in this very city,” Vance said, offering his condolences to the victims.
“It’s a terrible story but it’s one we’ve heard way too many times in Europe and unfortunately way too many times in the United States, as well, he said. “An asylum seeker, often a young man in his mid twenties, already known to police, rams a car into a crowd and shatters a community.”
“How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction?” Vance asked. “No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants,” he added, pointing out that voters in Great Britain did vote for Brexit and have repeatedly voted against “out of control migration.”
According to the Financial Times, “European officials in Munich were horrified at what they saw as Vance’s unfair and untrue claims.”
Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius furiously objected to Vance’s characterization of European policies, the far-left paper reported.
“I had a speech I prepared today,” Pistorius said. “It was supposed to be about security in Europe. But I cannot start in the way I originally intended . . . This democracy was called into question by the US vice-president.”
The German defense minister added: “He compares the condition of Europe with what is happening in autocracies. This is not acceptable.”
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat, characterized Vance’s remarks as “lecturing”.
“I think we can deal with our own domestic issues,” Kallas told the FT.
“It was mad, totally mad,” a senior European diplomat fumed. “And very dangerous.”
Another senior EU diplomat complained that the vice president “lectured us, he humiliated us.”
“Some officials compared the speech with Vladimir Putin’s address at the same event in 2007, where the Russian president warned that Nato expansion risked conflict with Moscow,” FT reported.
“The mood in the room was exactly like the Putin 2007 speech,” the diplomat told FT. “It was outrageous.”
I’m surprised the European “leaders” had the strength to carry themselves to lunch after the speech. I hope they were able to limp to the appropriately labeled lavatories afterwards. I pity the citizens of these once proud nations.
I wonder what they really found horrifying – VP Vance’s speech or being called out on their insane policies in public. Multiculturalism is an utter failure, as is uncontrolled, unvetted mass migration. All the countries of Western Europe have allowed themselves to be taken hostage by a minority that holds beliefs antithetical to civil societies and their leaders responses have been to suppress the rights and the voices of their native population. I hope they finally realize that the US isn’t coming to bail them out of trouble this time.
The idea that the US – or anyone else! (well, God – but He was ruled out years ago too) – COULD bail them out of the self-inflicted Stupid is giggle-worthy at best.
But, stupid as it is, there would come a point, when they are even further under siege than they already are, that they would expect us to send personnel over there to clean up their mess, citing mutual defense treaties. Should that day come, I hope that the POTUS, whoever that may be, tells them to go pound sand – it’s a civil matter.
I HIGHLY encourage everyone to watch Vance’s speech in its entirety. I bookmarked it. Vance was outstanding! And judging from the reaction of European Leaders, it hit every point Vance intended.