JD Vance Munich Security Conference Speech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIjmUxT9FWI

JD Vance is concerned about free speech in Europe.

The most worrisome threat to Europe isn’t from Russia or China. It is “the threat from within.”

References Romanian court canceling an election and boasting about it.

“We must do more than talk about democractic values, we must live them”

Soviets did not respect free speech, and thankfully they lost the Cold War.

References multiple examples of European governments cracking down on free speech. The examples are pretty bad, to be fair. E.g. Guy arrested for silently praying outside an abortion clinic in UK. Also, German legislature potentially banning AfD (second most popular political group in the country).

References Biden administration silencing social media companies. “Trump administration will do precisely the opposite.”

You can think it’s wrong for Russia to meddle in your elections, but “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.” Referecing Russian involvement in Romanian election? This is a stupid take.

“misinformation” and “disinformation” are “Soviet words”

Wants Europe to invest in defense

“Nothing more urgent than mass migration”

No one wants millions of unvetted immigrants

In sum: Europe is straying away from democratic/ american values and that needs to change.

WSJ Opinion on speech

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/jd-vances-message-at-munich-foreign-policy-europe-america-bc4a8b82

Dominic Green liked the speech. Main points (quotes):

• Europe’s governing class has eviscerated the “fundamental values” that Europe shares with the U.S.
• It has opened its gates to mass immigration and Islamist terrorism. To evade the electoral reckoning, it censors, smears and suppresses the objections of the lawful majority: a “surefire way to destroy democracy.”
• Economic and individual freedom support each other. Innovation, competitiveness and risk-taking are the natural partners of liberty, free speech and democracy. Europe should be the natural partner of the U.S. and a key link in the emerging American-led alignment. But Europe is divorced from reality.

NYT Opinion on speech

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/opinion/vance-munich-germany-afd.html

Bret Stephens did not like the speech. Main points:

• Germany remains unmistakenly Democratic
• JD refuses to say Trump lost the 2020 election
• JD met with AfD leader, Alice Weidel
• Prev. AfD leader complained about Holocaust memorial in Berlin (“the only people in the world who’ve planted a monument of shame in their capital”), other AfD leader minimized the gravity of the Holocaust
• AfD politicians met in 2023 to discuss a “master plan” to send migrants back to their countries of ethnic origin, regardless of citizenship or permanent residence.
• An “American vice president went to Munich to carry on about his idealism while breaking bread with those who would obliterate democratic ideals. A disgrace.”

Apparently Bret Stephens is conservative.