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JD Vance's European Comments Spark Concerns Ahead of Zelensky Meeting

JD Vance's European Comments Spark Concerns Ahead of Zelensky Meeting

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US Vice President JD Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference drew criticism, as he failed to mention President Trump's talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine, instead emphasizing Europe's need to uphold democratic values. Vance's speech sparked controversy, particularly in his singling out migration as Europe's most critical issue and his criticisms of various European countries, including Sweden, Romania, the UK, and Germany.

Boris Pistorius
German Defense Ministry
1. That is unacceptable, and it is not the Europe and not the democracy in which I live and am currently campaigning.
2. This democracy was just called into question by the US vice-president, not just the German democracy but that of Europe as a whole.
3. Democracy does not mean that a noisy minority can decide what is the truth. Democracy must be able to defend itself against extremists.
Jeanne Shaheen
Democratic Party
1. One of the mistakes in Afghanistan was that the Afghan government was not at the negotiating table when President Trump in his first term negotiated a peace agreement there.
James David Vance
Republican Party
1. Over the span of a decade, we saw the horrors wrought by these decisions yesterday in this very city.
2. Whether that's the leader of the opposition, a humble Christian praying in her own home or a journalist trying to report the news.
3. What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.
4. Nor can you win one by disregarding your basic electorate on questions like who gets to be a part of our shared society and of all the pressing challenges that the nations represented here face. I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration today.
5. But what German democracy, what no democracy – American, German or European – will survive is telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns, their aspirations, their pleas for relief are invalid or unworthy.
6. In America, you cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail.
7. I have heard a lot about what you need to defend yourselves from but what is less clear to me is what exactly are you defending yourselves for. If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.
8. A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith-Connor, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and an Army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 metres from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own.
9. Now, to many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like 'misinformation' and 'disinformation', who simply don't like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion.
10. But you know what they did vote for? In England, they voted for Brexit. And agree or disagree, they voted for it. And more and more all over Europe, they're voting for political leaders who promise to put an end to out-of-control migration.
11. You can believe it's wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage even. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few $100,000 of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn't very strong to begin with.
12. If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg's scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.
13. I've read a lot about the Holocaust in books, but being here and seeing it up close in person really drives home what unspeakable evil … was committed and why we should be committed to ensuring that it never happens again.

JD Vance's European Comments Spark Concerns Ahead of Zelensky Meeting

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