- VP Vance declared at the Munich Security Conference that attacks on free speech are the biggest security threat to Europe and the world.
- He criticized specific instances of censorship across Europe, including raids in Germany, arrests in the U.K., and EU social media restrictions.
- Vance promised that the Trump administration will defend free speech rights and warned that the U.S. won't support countries that don't uphold democratic values.
At the Munich Security Conference, joined by over 450 world leaders, Vice President JD Vance gave a fiery 20-minute speech targeted against what he believes is the largest security threat in Europe and the world: an attack on free speech.
Vance began by explaining how leaders at security conferences typically discuss “external threats” to their countries. However, Vance believes a bigger threat than Russia or China is “the threat from within.”
And to Vance, the threat from within is the “retreat” from fundamental European values, “values shared with the United States of America.”
“If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor, for that matter, is there anything you can do for the American people who elected me and elected President Trump,” he said.
Vance says the Trump administration will be a 180-degree change from Biden administration
“In the interest of comedy, but also in the interest of truth, I will admit that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come, not from within Europe, but from within my own country,” Vance said.
Vance referenced censorship that he believes took place during the Biden administration, when officials “threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation.”
The censorship Vance mentioned involved denials over claims that COVID-19 came from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
Vance explained how he came to the conference not simply to describe his observations, but with an offer.
“Just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people from speaking their minds, so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite, and I hope we can work together on that,” Vance said.
Vance continued, “In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town, and under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to speak in the public square, agree or disagree.”
Vance calls out instances of censorship in Brussels, Sweden, U.K, Scotland, more
“Unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners,” Vance began.
He referenced instances of political censorship in Brussels, “where EU commissioned commissars warned citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest the moment they spot what they judge as quote, ‘hateful content.’”
Then, Vance directed his attention toward censorship in Germany, claiming German police forces have recently raided the homes of citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments. These raids were justified under the claim they were “combatting misogyny on the internet,” Vance said.
In Sweden, Vance referenced a conviction that happened two weeks ago, where a Christian activist participated in “Quran burnings that resulted in his friend’s murder.” Then Vance read the judge’s ruling, which said, “Sweden’s laws to supposedly protect free expression, do not in fact grant a free pass to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief.”
In the U.K., Vance referenced an event from two years ago where 51-year-old Adam Smith-Connor was arrested under buffer zone laws for silently praying for three minutes outside of an abortion clinic.
“After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply that it was on the behalf of his unborn son he and his former girlfriend had aborted years before,” Vance said.
Smith-Connor was charged over 9,000 pounds, the BBC reported in 2024.
Mass migration as a threat to national security
As Vance began his speech, he offered his condolences to the individuals and families hurt and affected by Thursday’s terrorist attack in Munich, when an Afghan asylum-seeker drove into a crowd, injuring 36 people.
He returned to the terrorist attack partway through.
“It’s a terrible story, but it’s one we’ve heard way too many times in Europe, and unfortunately one we’ve heard too many times in the United States as well. An asylum-seeker, often a young man in his mid-20s, already known to police, rams a car into a crowd and shatters a community,” Vance said.
Vance said mass migration encouraged by Western world leaders is in opposition with what the citizens of those countries want.
“No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the flood gates to millions of unvetted immigrants,” Vance said. “But you know what they did vote for? In England, they voted for Brexit, agree or disagree, they voted for it. Moreover, all over Europe, they’re voting for political leaders who promised to put an end to out of control migration.”
Vance continued to encourage the world leaders present to view their citizens as intelligent individuals who are worth being listened to.
He said, “Now it’s time for all of our countries, for all of us who have been fortunate enough to be given political power by our respective peoples, to use it wisely to improve their lives.”
“You cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail, whether that’s the leader of the opposition, a humble Christian praying in her own home, or a journalist trying to report the news,” Vance said.