Topic: Politics
by MPeriod
Posted 5 months ago
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has come to the defense of Vice President J.D. Vance, who delivered a controversial speech on Friday accusing European leaders of censorship and opening the “floodgates” to millions of immigrants.
The speech sparked strong reactions at the Munich Security Conference, particularly from European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.
In an interview with CBS News’s Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation on Sunday, Rubio dismissed concerns over Vance’s remarks.
“The Munich Security Conference is largely a conference of democracies in which one of the things that we cherish and value is the ability to speak freely and provide your opinions,” Rubio said. “So I think if anyone’s angry about his words, they don’t have to agree with him, but to be angry about it, I think, actually, makes this point.”
He further described the speech as “historic”, emphasizing that whether people agree with Vance or not, it was an important address.
While in Munich, Vice President Vance also met with Alice Weidel, leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, just over a week before Germany's upcoming national election.
The AfD, which has faced investigations for extremism by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, has also been fined for using Nazi slogans. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the meeting, stating:
“A commitment to ‘never again’ is therefore incompatible with support for the AfD.”
Rubio dismissed the backlash from European leaders, arguing that the U.S. has faced criticism from Europe before.
“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,” he said.
During the interview, CBS's Brennan pushed back, arguing that free speech had enabled genocide in Nazi Germany.
“[Vance] was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide,” Brennan said, noting that Vance also met with the leader of a party with far-right views and historical ties to extremist groups.
Rubio rejected this interpretation, responding:
“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.”
He further emphasized:
“There was no free speech in Nazi Germany.”
Following the interview, Vice President Vance criticized Brennan’s remarks in a post on X (formerly Twitter), stating:
“This is a crazy exchange. Does the media really think the Holocaust was caused by free speech?”