Vice President JD Vance doubled down on the tone of his Munich speech while at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday, saying that while he believed many European nations to be friends, that friendship was dependent on “shared values.”
Vance got mixed reviews from world leaders when he challenged European leaders to abandon recent efforts to suppress the political expressions of their own people, saying in part, “If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.”
After CPAC attendees gave Vance a loud — if a week late — standing ovation for his Munich remarks, he took a similar tone when talking about the United States’ relationship with European nations moving forward.
WATCH:
.@VP Vance: “The strength of those alliances with Europe depend on whether we take our societies in the right direction. That friendship is based on shared values. You do not have shared values if you’re jailing people for saying we should close down our borders.” pic.twitter.com/ADCA8lWKKc
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) February 20, 2025
Moderator Mercedes Schlapp asked Vance to elaborate on the relationship between Europe and the United States, and he laid it out in blunt fashion.
“Obviously we’re going to continue to have important alliances with Europe, but I really do think the strength of those alliances is going to depend on whether we take our societies in the right direction.”
Vance went on to say that American troops stationed in Germany helped to keep that nation safe on the taxpayers’ dime, adding, “Do you think that the American taxpayer is going to stand for that if you get thrown in jail in Germany for posting a mean tweet? Of course, they’re not!”
“So the point that I tried to make to our European friends — and I think that they’re our friends, I believe that, I know President Trump does — is that friendship is based on shared values,” Vance continued. “You do not have shared values if you’re jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don’t have shared values if you cancel elections because you don’t like the result, and that happened in Romania. You don’t have — you do not have shared values if you’re so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up.”
“So let’s have shared values,” he concluded. “Let’s defend democracy, let’s have free expression, not just in the United States but all over the Western world. That is the path to strong alliances in Europe.”
Shortly after Vance’s speech last week, CBS News ran a “60 Minutes” broadcast that highlighted Germany’s efforts to curtail “hate speech” on the internet — and network anchor Margaret Brennan accused Vance directly of irritating American allies, claiming that “free speech was weaponized” to cause the Holocaust.
