Live coverage from Munich: POLITICO is on the ground at the Munich Security Conference, where we’re having conversations with top officials, lawmakers and experts at our POLITICO Pub. Follow our exclusive coverage here.
MUNICH — JD Vance’s fiery speech at the Munich Security Conference — part of his multi-day debut on the world stage as U.S. vice president — dominated the marathon high-level gabfest among hundreds of top foreign dignitaries and national security elites.
“No one is talking about anything else,” said a senior Eastern European official.
Vance railed against establishment politics, urged Europe to curb migration and compared EU leaders to Soviet commissars because they had criticized far-right leaders. The tongue-lashing cemented fears among Europe’s security elites that the United States was diverging from the transatlantic status quo at a rapid pace, and there was little they could do to stop it.
“This is a new United States and it’s clear the old one Europe’s been used to for decades is gone,” said one former senior U.S. diplomat. “It could be this is the one wake-up call that actually wakes Europe up.”
POLITICO spoke to 14 conference attendees at the forum, several of whom were granted anonymity to discuss their reactions to Vance’s speech candidly. Many reacted with a mixture of shock and anger.
From inside an overflow room — the main conference hall was jam-packed — attendees laughed sardonically when Vance mentioned “shared values.” Not once, but twice, people in the room said “that was some weird shit” — quoting George W. Bush’s reaction to Trump’s first inauguration speech in 2017.
That went for the professional diplomats, too. “This is all so insane and worrying,” said a German official.
“I was aghast,” said a former House Democratic staffer attending the conference. “It’s not Russia influencing your elections, you are? He was blaming the victim.”
“What the fuck was that? I had my mouth open in a room full of people with their mouth open,” he said. “That was bad.”
When asked by reporters about Vance’s speech, Trump said it was a “very good speech, actually very brilliant.”
Vance’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Aiming at a domestic audience
But others conceded that Vance’s real audience wasn’t in Munich, but rather the MAGA base back home — and other populist groups in Europe hungry to oust establishment parties in future elections.
Even among the stunned audience at his speech in Munich, some European officials are welcoming the sharp jolt the MAGA world delivered to the continent.
They believe shocks to the system, like Vance’s speech and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s suggestion that the U.S. could look to reduce its military presence in Europe, will finally force Europe to realize it can’t rely on the United States in the same way it has for decades.
While the first Trump term was seen almost as an accident in many capitals, the second is an indication that the Earth has irrevocably shifted under Europe’s feet.
The response, according to many Eastern European officials closer to Russia’s border, should be to make bold strides in military investments after years of big talk and far too little action.
“How nervous am I about the U.S. right now? Honestly, I’m worried about Europe,” said Gabrielius Landsbergis, former Lithuanian foreign minister. “We cannot stay focused solely on what is happening with the U.S., what President Trump or others on his team have said. We are three steps behind anyway. The question is what are we going to do about it?”
One official from an Eastern European country expressed support for much of Vance’s speech, but said, “He should have been clear here that Russia is not a conservative model to follow.”
Spend more on defense
Top Republican lawmakers were blunt about the need for Europe to step up.
“Hopefully the Europeans will recognize that their free ride on the coattails of America has come to an end,” Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas said after Vance’s speech. “They’ve had it pretty good, and those days are over.”
Vance’s speech also underscored how European officials can’t paper over the chasm with Trump’s Washington, even as they try to balance keeping the NATO alliance strong while navigating the president’s efforts to broker a peace deal in Ukraine.
Top European officials who may have come into the weekend ready to be careful and diplomatic with the Americans took the gloves off after Vance’s speech. “If I understood him correctly, he is comparing parts of Europe with authoritarian regimes. This is not acceptable,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said.
Others felt Vance’s assumptions were downright wrong.
“There was a hypothesis in the speech that the voices of Europeans and democracies are not allowed to speak and are not being represented,” Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said on-stage at the POLITICO Pub after Vance’s speech. “The people that have his views in Europe are represented in all kinds of parliaments all across the continent. They’re competing in elections in this country in nine days.”
Dasha Burns and Joe Gould contributed to this report.
The post Vance brings a wrecking ball to diplomatic gathering in Munich appeared first on Politico.
