Vice President JD Vance is playing tourist while he’s in Milan for the Olympics, despite previously lecturing Italy and other European countries about how they were destroying their democracies and abandoning their values.
The vice president and Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Italy on Thursday to lead the U.S. delegation in Friday’s opening ceremony for the Milano Cortina Winter Games.
In between greeting athletes from Team USA and discussing bilateral relations with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Vance and his expectant wife Usha—who accompanied the vice president to Milan along with their three children—are squeezing in three tourist attractions in two days, Italy’s La Repubblica reported.
They’ll be visiting the Milan Duomo, Pinacoteca di Brera art museum, and Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of The Last Supper at the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, according to La Repubblica.
And it’s not the first time they’ve gone sightseeing during one of the vice president’s official visits to Italy.
When JD and Usha Vance were in Rome in May for the inaugural mass of the newly elected Pope Leo XIV, they caused an uproar after the Colosseum was closed early to give them a private visit, only for Usha to tour the ancient monument by herself in the end.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Vance’s office for comment.
The gallivanting seems to contradict the vice president’s blistering attacks on Europe during a speech at the Munich Security Conference in February.
“The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values,” he told a room full of stunned leaders.
He went on to scold European leaders about immigration, free speech, and electoral integrity, condescendingly asking them if they even “knew what they were defending” with their security spending.
Since then, Vance has been hard at work to help President Donald Trump realize his dream seizing Greenland, a sovereign democratic country, against its will.
That position has put the Trump administration at odds even with Europe’s far-right leaders, including Meloni, whom Vance has praised as a helpful bridge between the Trump administration and the rest of Western Europe.
The U.S. has also sparked outrage in Italy by sending ICE agents with the Homeland Security Investigations division to help with security for the Olympic Games, leading to protests, petitions, and calls for Meloni’s government to ban Trump’s “thugs” from entering the country.
During joint remarks to the press Friday, Meloni studiously ignored the controversies and praised the “wonderful bilateral relations” between Italy and the U.S.
She also said that Vance’s Italians visits commemorated two events—the selection of the new pope and the Olympic Games—that “tell about values that keep together Italy and the U.S., Europe and the U.S., Western civilization. And it’s mainly the reason why we like to work together.”
“It’s great to be back in your beautiful country,” Vance replied. “We love Italy, we love the Italian people, and as you said, we have a lot of great relationships.”
He added that he and the second lady had been looking forward to attending the Milan Olympics ever since he was elected vice president.
Commenti alla stampa con il Vice Presidente degli Stati Uniti d’America, @JDVance pic.twitter.com/2Z72l3hQ0e
— Giorgia Meloni (@GiorgiaMeloni) February 6, 2026
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