In a blatant speech on Friday, US Vice President JD Vance told European leaders, “There is a new mayor in the city under the leadership of Donald Trump,” and governments warned that the internal threats of democracy, such as the abolition of elections and oversight, are greater threats to their countries from foreign opponents such as China and Russia.
“The threat that I feel more anxious than others in Europe is not Russia, it is not China, it is not any other external actor,” Vans said at the Munich Security Conference. “What anxious is the threat from within – Europe’s decline in some of its most important basic values, and common values with the United States of America.
“I have heard a lot about what you need to defend yourselves before, and this is important. But what seemed to me a little less for me … is exactly what you defend yourself exactly?”
In his own statements to the conference, Vans lended European officials on freedom of expression and illegal immigration on the continent, and warned against elected officials that they were risking losing public support if they did not change quickly.
It specifically targeted December 2024 Romanian elections are canceledWhich was canceled by the country’s Supreme Court after accusations of Russian intervention, and rejected the fear of misleading information as “words in the ugly Soviet era”.
“People rejected, rejecting their concerns … closing the media, closing the elections … not to protect anything. It is the most confirmary way to destroy democracy.”
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“If you are afraid of voters, there is nothing that America can do for you.”
The Vice President also warned of European officials of illegal immigration, saying that the voters did not vote to open the “flood gates for millions of unrestricted immigrants” and refer to an attack on Thursday in Munich, where the suspect is 24 years old, who arrived in Germany as a asylum student 2016.
He stressed that Europe should “escalate” in managing its security, while taking a combat tone during a time to increase the via subdow of trade on trade, defense and other issues.
Despite Trump’s repeated attacks on journalists, Democrats and imagined critics, Vans struck the predecessor of his president, former President Joe Biden, who Vans said, “It seemed desperate to silence people to talk about their opinion.”
“There is a new sheriff in the city under the leadership of Donald Trump,” Vans said. “We may disagree with your opinions, but we will fight to defend your right to present it in the public arena. I agree or do not agree.”
NBC News Reports, Vice President’s comments “Kant” He met with an ice reception The scattered applause only. “
The future of Ukraine was at the top of the agenda in Munich after a phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, as they pledged to work together to end the conflict, but Vans did not put it.
Instead, he said that Brussels closed social media because of hateful content, and criticized Germany for what he described as raids against its citizens to publish anti -women’s comments, Sweden to condemn a Christian activist and the United Kingdom for his retreat from religious rights.
The Vice President’s speech has caused immediate criticism in Europe.
Vans An attack on European democracy Natalie Toyki, director of Istituto Affarti Internet, Reuters, said that success in the language of democracy itself should leave any doubt at all that the goal of this administration is to destroy the European Union and liberal democracies.
In response to Vans’s speech, German Defense Secretary Boris Pistorius told the conference: “If I understand it properly, it compares parts of Europe with authoritarian regimes. This is unacceptable.”
–With Reuters files and Associated Press
& Copy 2025 Global News, a Division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
