JD Vance Gave Europe A Big Slice Of Truth
I don’t know how he did it.
I’m talking about Vice President JD Vance and the 18-minute speech he delivered Friday before a stone-faced, unfriendly audience at the Munich Security Council.
Here it is. If you haven’t listened to it, you should.
The delegates from European countries expected Vance to lay out a plan for peace in Ukraine. Instead, he delivered a tough, get-your-act-together oration warning European leaders that they had strayed far from the Western values they once shared with the U.S.
I don’t know how Vance was able to deliver such a smooth address given the chilly reception of his audience. There was a smattering of applause once and a smatter at the conclusion and that was it.
It’s very difficult to speak to hostile groups. And by the conclusion of Vance’s remarks the leaders were hostile.
He told them the truth: The real danger facing Europe isn’t coming from Russia or China, but their willingness to abandon principles of free speech and open elections.
“The threat that I worry most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values,” Vance said…
“When we see European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we need to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard,” Vance said.
The vice president admitted that these democratic values had been under attack in the U.S. during the Biden administration, but that’s changed now.
“The previous administration bullied social media companies into censoring so-called misinformation — like the idea that Covid-19 leaked from a lab”.
“But that era is over. In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town. Under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to express them.”
More than what was said was what was implied: Europe cannot expect for the U.S. to continue to shower the continent with billions of dollars if the foundational principles that bind our nations together are being abandoned there.
After the speech, European officials harrumphed about how inappropriate and wrong Vance was.
In a knee-jerk reaction to the Trump administration, CBS used “60 Minutes” to celebrate censorship. It was a bizarre anti-free speech episode in which the show aired friendly interviews with German officials that confirming exactly what Vance alleged: Free speech is dead in most of Europe.
Chilling, no?
Vance did have a funny line or two in his speech. Not that the humorless Europeans laughed.
“If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk,” he said.
I don’t know about you, but I’m proud of the veep for serving up a delicious slice of truth to foreign leaders who are afraid of their own citizens.
