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00:00of the United States, Mr. J.D. Vance, who was here last year as senator and we are very
00:07happy that he has come back to Munich and we are very much looking forward to his speech.
00:15Please welcome Vice President J.D. Vance.
00:21Well, thank you and thanks to all the gathered delegates and luminaries and media professionals
00:35and thanks especially to the host of the Munich Security Conference for being able to put
00:41on such an incredible event, we are of course thrilled to be here, we are happy to be here
00:46and one of the things that I wanted to talk about today is of course our shared values
00:53and it's great to be back in Germany, as you heard earlier, I was here last year as
00:57United States Senator, I saw Foreign Secretary David Lammy and joke that both of us last
01:04year had different jobs than we have now, but now it's time for all of our countries,
01:08for all of us who have been fortunate enough to be given political power by our respective
01:14peoples to use it wisely to improve their lives and I want to say that I was fortunate
01:20in my time here to spend some time outside the walls of this conference over the last
01:2524 hours and I've been so impressed by the hospitality of the people, even of course
01:32as they are reeling from yesterday's horrendous attack and the first time I was ever in Munich
01:38was with my wife actually who is here with me today on a personal trip and I've always
01:43loved the city of Munich and I've always loved its people and I just want to say that
01:47we're very moved and our thoughts and prayers are with Munich and everybody affected by
01:51the evil and inflicted on this beautiful community, we're thinking about you, we're praying for
01:56you and we will certainly be rooting for you in the days and weeks to come.
02:02Now, I hope that's not the last bit of applause that I get, but we gather at this conference
02:14of course to discuss security and normally we mean threats to our external security,
02:21I see many great military leaders gathered here today, but while the Trump administration
02:26is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable
02:33settlement between Russia and Ukraine and we also believe that it's important in the
02:37coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense, the threat
02:43that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any
02:49other external actor and what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of
02:56Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.
03:02Now, I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted
03:10that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election, he warned that if things
03:16don't go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too.
03:21Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears, for years we've been told
03:28that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values,
03:34everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy,
03:43but when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening
03:48to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we're holding ourselves to an appropriately
03:53high standard and I say ourselves because I fundamentally believe that we are on the
03:58same team, we must do more than talk about democratic values, we must live them.
04:04Now, within living memory of many of you in this room, the Cold War positioned defenders
04:11of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent and consider the
04:17side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that cancelled elections,
04:25were they the good guys?
04:27Certainly not, and thank God they lost the Cold War.
04:31They lost because they neither valued nor respected all of the extraordinary blessings
04:36of liberty, the freedom to surprise, to make mistakes, to invent, to build.
04:43As it turns out, you can't mandate innovation or creativity just as you can't force people
04:49what to think, what to feel or what to believe and we believe those things are certainly
04:54connected and unfortunately when I look at Europe today, it's sometimes not so clear
05:00what happened to some of the Cold War's winners.
05:04I look to Brussels, where EU commissars warn citizens that they intend to shut down social
05:11media during times of civil unrest the moment they spot what they've judged to be, quote,
05:17hateful content.
05:19Or to this very country, where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected
05:24of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of, quote, combating misogyny on the
05:30internet, a day of action.
05:33I look to Sweden, where two weeks ago the government convicted a Christian activist
05:38for participating in Koran burnings that resulted in his friend's murder.
05:44And as the judge in his case chillingly noted, Sweden's laws to supposedly protect free expression
05:51do not in fact grant, and I'm quoting, a free pass to do or say anything without risking
05:59offending the group that holds that belief.
06:03And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where
06:08the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious
06:12Britons in particular in the crosshairs.
06:15A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith-Connor, a 51-year-old
06:21physiotherapist and an army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from
06:28an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes.
06:33Not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own.
06:39And after British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying
06:43for, Adam replied simply it was on behalf of the unborn son he and his former girlfriend
06:50had aborted years before.
06:53Now the officers were not moved.
06:55Adam was found guilty of breaking the government's new buffer zones law, which criminalizes
07:00silent prayer and other actions that could influence a person's decision within 200 meters
07:06of an abortion facility.
07:08He was sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution.
07:13Now I wish I could say that this was a fluke, a one-off crazy example of a badly written
07:17law being enacted against a single person, but no.
07:22This last October, just a few months ago, the Scottish government began distributing
07:26letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones, warning them
07:32that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law.
07:38Naturally, the government urged readers to report any fellow citizens suspected guilty
07:44of thought crime.
07:45In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.
07:51And in the interest of comedy, my friends, but also in the interest of truth, I will
07:56admit that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come not from within Europe,
08:02but from within my own country, where the prior administration threatened and bullied
08:07social media companies to censor so-called misinformation.
08:11Misinformation like, for example, the idea that coronavirus had likely leaked from a
08:17laboratory in China.
08:19Our own government encouraged private companies to silence people who dared to utter what
08:25turned out to be an obvious truth.
08:28So I come here today not just with an observation, but with an offer.
08:33And just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their
08:38minds, so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite.
08:43And I hope that we can work together on that.
08:46In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town.
08:49And under Donald Trump's leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight
08:54to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree.
08:59Now, we're at the point, of course, that the situation has gotten so bad that this
09:09December, Romania straight up canceled the results of a presidential election based on
09:15the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental
09:21neighbors.
09:22Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the
09:28Romanian elections.
09:30But I'd ask my European friends to have some perspective.
09:34You can believe it's wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence
09:39your elections.
09:40We certainly do.
09:41You can condemn it on the world stage, even.
09:44But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital
09:48advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn't very strong to begin with.
09:58Now, the good news is that I happen to think your democracies are substantially less brittle
10:03than many people apparently fear.
10:05And I really do believe that allowing our citizens to speak their mind will make them
10:10stronger still.
10:12Which, of course, brings us back to Munich, where the organizers of this very conference
10:18have banned lawmakers representing populist parties on both the left and the right from
10:22participating in these conversations.
10:25Now, again, we don't have to agree with everything or anything that people say.
10:31But when people represent, when political leaders represent an important constituency, it is
10:37incumbent upon us to at least participate in dialogue with them.
10:42Now, to many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old
10:47entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation
10:54who simply don't like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express
10:59a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way or, even worse, win an election.
11:08Now, this is a security conference, and I'm sure you all came here prepared to talk about
11:13how exactly you intend to increase defense spending over the next few years in line with
11:18some new target.
11:20And that's great, because as President Trump has made abundantly clear, he believes that
11:25our European friends must play a bigger role in the future of this continent.
11:30We don't think, you hear this term, burden sharing, but we think it's an important part
11:35of being in a shared alliance together that the Europeans step up while America focuses
11:40on areas of the world that are in great danger.
11:44But let me also ask you, how will you even begin to think through the kinds of budgeting
11:49questions if we don't know what it is that we are defending in the first place?
11:55I've heard a lot already in my conversations, and I've had many, many great conversations
12:00with many people gathered here in this room.
12:03I've heard a lot about what you need to defend yourselves from, and of course that's important.
12:08But what has seemed a little bit less clear to me, and certainly I think to many of the
12:13citizens of Europe, is what exactly it is that you're defending yourselves for.
12:18What is the positive vision that animates this shared security compact that we all
12:24believe is so important?
12:26And I believe deeply that there is no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions
12:34and the conscience that guide your very own people.
12:38Europe faces many challenges, but the crisis this continent faces right now, the crisis
12:44I believe we all face together, is one of our own making.
12:50If you're running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.
12:56Nor, for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people who elected
13:01me and elected President Trump.
13:04You need democratic mandates to accomplish anything of value in the coming years.
13:08Have we learned nothing that thin mandates produce unstable results?
13:14But there is so much of value that can be accomplished with the kind of democratic mandate
13:20that I think will come from being more responsive to the voices of your citizens.
13:25If you're going to enjoy competitive economies, if you're going to enjoy affordable energy
13:31and secure supply chains, then you need mandates to govern.
13:36Because you have to make difficult choices to enjoy all of these things, and of course
13:40we know that very well in America.
13:42You cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail, whether
13:48that's the leader of the opposition, a humble Christian praying in her own home, or a journalist
13:54trying to report the news.
13:56Nor can you win one by disregarding your basic electorate on questions like who gets to
14:01be a part of our shared society.
14:04And of all the pressing challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there
14:09is nothing more urgent than mass migration.
14:14Today, almost one in five people living in this country moved here from abroad.
14:19That is, of course, an all-time high.
14:21It's a similar number, by the way, in the United States, also an all-time high.
14:25The number of immigrants who entered the EU from non-EU countries doubled between 2021
14:32and 2022 alone, and of course it's gotten much higher since.
14:36And we know the situation, it didn't materialize in a vacuum.
14:41It's the result of a series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over the
14:47continent and others across the world over the span of a decade.
14:53We saw the horrors wrought by these decisions yesterday in this very city.
14:58And of course, I can't bring it up again without thinking about the terrible victims
15:04who had a beautiful winter day in Munich ruined.
15:07Our thoughts and prayers are with them and will remain with them.
15:11But why did this happen in the first place?
15:14It's a terrible story, but it's one we've heard way too many times in Europe and
15:18unfortunately too many times in the United States as well.
15:22An asylum seeker, often a young man in his mid-twenties, already known to police,
15:28rams a car into a crowd and shatters a community.
15:32How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course
15:38and take our shared civilization in a new direction?
15:43No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions
15:49of unvetted immigrants.
15:52But you know what they did vote for?
15:54In England, they voted for Brexit.
15:56And agree or disagree, they voted for it.
15:59And more and more all over Europe, they're voting for political leaders who promise
16:03to put an end to out-of-control migration.
16:06Now, I happen to agree with a lot of these concerns, but you don't have to agree with me.
16:10I just think that people care about their homes, they care about their dreams,
16:15they care about their safety and their capacity to provide for themselves and their children.
16:21And they're smart.
16:23I think this is one of the most important things I've learned in my brief time in politics.
16:27Contrary to what you might hear a couple of mountains over in Davos,
16:32the citizens of all of our nations don't generally think of themselves as educated animals
16:37or as interchangeable cogs of a global economy.
16:41And it's hardly surprising that they don't want to be shuffled about
16:44or relentlessly ignored by their leaders.
16:47It is the business of democracy to adjudicate these big questions at the ballot box.
16:53I believe that dismissing people, dismissing their concerns, or worse yet,
16:59shutting down media, shutting down elections, or shutting people out of the political process
17:05protects nothing.
17:07In fact, it is the most surefire way to destroy democracy.
17:12And speaking up and expressing opinions isn't election interference,
17:17even when people express views outside your own country
17:21and even when those people are very influential.
17:24And trust me, I say this with all humor,
17:27if American Democracy can survive ten years of Greta Thunberg's scolding,
17:32you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.
17:36But what German Democracy, what no democracy,
17:40American, German, or European, will survive
17:43is telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns,
17:46their aspirations, their pleas for relief
17:49are invalid or unworthy of even being considered.
17:54Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters.
18:00There's no room for firewalls.
18:04You either uphold the principle or you don't.
18:08Europeans, the people, have a voice.
18:12European leaders have a choice.
18:15And my strong belief is that we do not need to be afraid of the future.
18:21You can embrace what your people tell you, even when it's surprising,
18:25even when you don't agree.
18:27And if you do so, you can face the future with certainty and with confidence,
18:31knowing that the nation stands behind each of you.
18:35And that, to me, is the great magic of democracy.
18:38It's not in these stone buildings or beautiful hotels.
18:42It's not even in the great institutions that we have built together as a shared society.
18:48To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom
18:54and has a voice.
18:56And if we refuse to listen to that voice,
18:58even our most successful fights will secure very little.
19:03As Pope John Paul II, in my view, one of the most extraordinary champions of democracy
19:09on this continent or any other, once said,
19:12do not be afraid.
19:14We shouldn't be afraid of our people,
19:17even when they express views that disagree with their leadership.
19:21Thank you all. Good luck to all of you.
19:23God bless you.
19:26Thank you.