U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has fired back at European backlash against Vice President JD Vance’s recent speech in Munich, where Vance warned that Europe’s greatest danger stems from within its own borders due to the erosion of free speech and the silencing of political dissent.
Vance’s remarks hit a nerve among European elites, who quickly erupted in outrage.
British Lord Jonathan Sumption, an establishment lackey and mouthpiece for the leftist media, dismissed Vance’s address as “silly and immature.”
“Democracy and free speech are certainly under challenge in many European countries.. The challenge is not coming from governments. These criticisms are pretty rich coming from a President who is quite uniquely authoritarian. Democracy and free speech are under challenge in a much bigger way in the United States, and his boss, Donald Trump, is the man who is mainly responsible for that,” Sumption said.
Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius went even further, throwing a full-blown diplomatic tantrum, huffing that Vance had dared to question European democracy.
“This democracy was just called into question by the U.S. Vice President, not just the German democracy but that of Europe as a whole,” Boris Pistorius whined during his address.
“If I understand him correctly he compares the condition of Europe with what prevails in some authoritarian regimes … this is not acceptable. This is not the Europe where I live,” he added.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron called for an emergency summit in Paris, fearing the tremors sent through the Old Continent by a few honest words from an American leader who refuses to bow to political correctness.
But it wasn’t just European politicians melting down—back home, the corrupt media was in full damage control. CBS’s Margaret Brennan, a known propagandist for the globalist elite, disgracefully suggested that free speech was responsible for the Holocaust.
During an exchange with Senator Marco Rubio, Brennan tried to twist history, absurdly claiming that standing up for open discourse enabled Nazi atrocities.
Senator Marco Rubio leaped into the fray, defending Vance’s assertions with a vigorous advocacy for free speech.
Marco Rubio:
“I think if anyone’s angry about his word, they don’t have to agree with him. But to be angry about it, I think actually makes his point. I thought it was actually a pretty historic speech, whether you agree with him or not.I think the valid points he’s making to Europe is we are concerned that the true values that we share, the values that bind us together with Europe are things like free speech and democracy and our shared history in winning two world wars and defeating Soviet communism and the like.
These are the values that we shared in common. In that Cold War, we fought against things like censorship and oppression and so forth. When you see backsliding and you raise that, that’s a very valid concern.
We can’t tell them how to run their countries. He simply expressed in a speech his view of it, which a lot of people, frankly, share. I thought he said a lot of things in that speech that needed to be said.
And honestly, I don’t know why anybody would be upset about it. You don’t have to agree on someone’s speech.
I happen to agree with a lot of what he said, but you don’t have to agree with someone’s speech to at least appreciate the fact they have a right to say it, and you should listen to it and see whether those criticisms are valid.
I assure you, the United States has come under withering criticism on many occasions from many leaders in Europe, and we don’t go around throwing temper tantrums about it.”
Margaret Brenan:
“Well, he was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide. He met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups. The context of that was changing the tone of it. You know that, that the censorship was specifically about the right.”Marco Rubio:
“No, I have to disagree with you. Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews and they hated minorities and they hated those that they had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews.There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none. There was also no opposition in Nazi Germany. They were a sole and only the country that governed that country. So that’s not an accurate reflection of history. I also think it’s wrong.
Again, I go back to the point of his speech. The point of his speech was basically that there is an erosion in free speech and in tolerance for opposing points of view within Europe, and that’s of concern because that is eroding. That’s not an erosion of your military capabilities. That’s not an erosion of your economic standing.
That’s an erosion of the actual values that bind us together in this transatlantic union that everybody talks about. And I think allies and friends and partners that have worked together now for 80 years should be able to speak frankly to one another in open forums without being offended, assaulted, or upset.
I spoke to foreign ministers from multiple countries throughout Europe. Many of them probably didn’t like the speech or didn’t agree with it, but they were continuing to engage with us on all sorts of issues that unite us.
Again, at the end of the day, I think that that is a forum in which you’re supposed to be inviting people to give speeches, not basically a chorus where everyone is saying the exact same thing.
That’s not always going to be the case when it’s a collection of democracies where leaders have the right and the privilege to speak their minds in forums such as these.”
WATCH:
