All language subtitles for VP Vance speaks in Munich as Trump seeks end to Ukraine war.en

[Applause]

well thank you and uh thanks to all the

uh the gathered delegates and luminaries

and media professionals and uh thank

thanks especially to the host of the

Munich security conference uh for being

able to to put on such an incredible

event we're of course thrilled to be

here we're happy to be here and you know

one of the things that I wanted to to

talk about today

is of course our shared values and you

know it's it's great to be back in

Germany as as you heard earlier I was

here last year as United States Senator

I saw uh foreign minister excuse me

foreign secretary David lamby and joke

that both of us last year had different

jobs than we have now but now it's time

uh for all of our countries for all of

those who have been fortunate enough to

be given political power by our

respective peoples to use it wisely to

improve their lives and I want to say

that you know I was fortunate in my time

here to spend some time outside the

walls of this conference over the last

24 hours and I've been so impressed by

the hospitality of the people even of

course as they're reeling from

yesterday's horrendous attack and the

first time I was ever in Munich was with

was with my wife actually who's here

with me today um on a personal trip and

I've always loved the city of Munich and

I've always loved its people and I just

want to say that we're very moved and

our thoughts and prayers are with Munich

and everybody affected by the evil

inflicted on this beautiful Community

we're thinking about you we're praying

for you and we will certainly be rooting

for you in the days and weeks to come

now I hope that's not the last bit of

Applause that I get but we We Gather at

at this conference of course to discuss

security and normally we mean threats to

our exteral interal security I see M

many great military leaders gathered

here today but while the Trump

Administration is very concerned with

European security and believes that we

can come to a reasonable settlement

between Russia and Ukraine and we also

believe that it's important in the

coming years for Europe to step up in a

big way to provide for its own defense

the threat that I worry the most about

Visa Europe is not Russia it's not China

it's not any other external actor and

what I worry about is the threat from

within the retreat of Europe from some

of its most fundamental values values

shared with the United States of America

now I was struck that a former European

commissioner went on television recently

and sounded delighted that the Romanian

government had just annuled an entire

election he warned that if things don't

go to plan the very same thing could

happen in Germany

too now these Cavalier statements are

shocking to American ears for years

we've been told that everything we fund

and support is in the name of our shared

Democratic Values everything from our

Ukraine policy to digital censorship is

build as a defense of

democracy but when we see European

courts cancelling elections and Senior

officials threatening to cancel others

we ought to ask whether we're holding

ourselves to an appropriately high

standard and I say ourselves because I

fundamentally believe that we are on the

same team we must do more than talk

about Democratic Values we must live

them now within living memory of many of

you in this room the Cold War positioned

Defenders of democracy against much more

tyrannical forces on this continent and

consider the side in that fight that

censored dissident

that closed churches that canell

elections were they the good guys

certainly not and thank God they lost

the Cold War they lost because they

neither valued nor respected all of the

extraordinary blessings of liberty the

freedom to surprise to make mistakes to

invent to build as it turns out you

can't mandate Innovation or creativity

just as you can't force people what to

think what to feel or what to believe

and we believe those things are

certainly connected and unfortunately

when I look at Europe today it's

sometimes not so clear what happened to

some of the cold Wars winners I Look to

Brussels where EU commiss commissars

warned citizens that they intend to shut

down social media during times of civil

unrest the moment they spot what they've

judged to be quote hateful content or to

this very country where police have

carried out raids against citizens

suspected of posting anti-feminist

comments online as part of quote

combating misogyny on the internet a day

of action I looked to Sweden where two

weeks ago the government convicted a

Christian activist for participating in

Karan burnings that resulted in his

friend's murder and as the judge in his

case chillingly noted Sweden's laws to

supposedly protect free expression do

not in fact Grant and I'm quoting a free

pass to do or say anything without

risking offending the group that holds

that

belief and perhaps most concerningly I

Look to our very dear friends the United

Kingdom where the backslide away from

conscience rights has placed the basic

Liberties of religious Britain in

particular in the

crosshairs a little over two years ago

the British government charged Adam

Smith Connor a 51-year-old

physiotherapist and an army veteran with

the heinous crime of standing 50 m from

an abortion clinic and silently praying

for 3 minutes not obstructing anyone not

interacting with anyone just silently

praying on his own and after British law

enforcement spotted him and demanded to

know what he was praying for Adam

replied simply it was on behalf of The

Unborn son he and his former girlfriend

friend had aborted years

before now the officers were not moved

Adam was found guilty of breaking the

government's new buffer zones law which

criminalizes silent prayer and other

actions that could influence a person's

decision within 200 MERS of an abortion

facility he was sentenced to pay

thousands of pounds in legal costs to

the

prosecution now I wish I could say that

this was a fluke a one-off crazy example

of a badly written law being enacted

against a single person but no this last

October just a few months ago the

Scottish government began Distributing

letters to Citizens whose houses lay

within so-called safe access zones

warning them that even private prayer

within their own homes May amount to

Breaking the

Law naturally the government urged

readers to report any fellow citizen

suspected guilty of thought crime in

Britain and across Europe free speech I

fear is in

Retreat and in the interest of Comedy my

friends 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 where the prior

Administration threatened and bullied

social media companies to censor

so-called

misinformation misinformation like for

example the idea that Corona virus had

likely leaked from leaked from a

laboratory in China our own government

encouraged private companies to silence

people who dared to utter what turned

out to be an obvious

truth so I come here today not just with

an observation but with an offer and

just as the B Administration seemed

desperate to silence people for speaking

their minds so the Trump Administration

will do precisely the opposite and I

hope that we can work together on that

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 offer

it in the Public Square agree or

disagree now we're at the point of

course that the the situation has gotten

so bad that this December ROM Romania

straight up canceled the results of a

presidential election based on the

flimsy suspicions of an intelligence

agency and a normous pressure from its

Continental neighbors now as I

understand it the argument was that

Russian disinformation had infected the

Romanian elections but I'd ask my

European friends to have some

perspective you can believe it's wrong

for Russia to buy social media

advertisements to influence your

elections we certainly do you can

condemn it on the world stage even but

if your democracy can be destroyed with

a few hundred, of digital advertising

from a foreign country then it wasn't

very strong to begin

with now the good news is that I happen

to think your democracies are

substantially less brittle than many

people apparently fear and I really do

believe that allowing our citizens to

speak their mind will make them stronger

still which of course brings us back to

Munich where the organizers of this very

conference have banned lawmakers

representing populist parties on both

the left and the right from

participating in these conversations now

again we don't have to agree with

everything or anything that people say

but when people represent when political

leaders represent an important

constituency it is incumbent upon us to

at least participate in dialogue with

them now to many of us on the other side

of the Atlantic it looks more and more

like old entrenched interests hiding

behind ugly Soviet era words like

misinformation and disinformation who

simply don't like the idea that somebody

with an alternative Viewpoint might

Express a different opinion or God

forbid vote a different way or even

worse win an

election now this is a security

conference and I'm sure you all came

here prepared to talk about how exactly

you would tend to increase defense

spending over the next few years in line

with some new Target and that's great

because as president Trump has made

abundantly clear he believes that our

European friends must play a bigger role

in the future of this continent we don't

think you hear this term burden sharing

but we think it's an important part of

being in a shared Alliance together that

the Europeans step up while America

focuses on areas of the world that are

in great danger but let me also ask you

how will you even begin to think through

the kinds of budgeting question question

s if we don't know what it is that we

are defending in the first place I've

heard a lot already in my conversations

and I've had many many great

conversations with many people gathered

here in this room I've heard a lot about

what you need to defend yourselves from

and of course that's important but what

has seemed a little bit less clear to me

and certainly I think to many of the

citizens of Europe is what exactly it is

that you're defending yourselves for

what is the positive Vision that

animates this shared security compact

that we all believe is so important and

I believe deeply that there is no

security if you are afraid of the voices

the opinions and the conscience that

guide your very own people Europe faces

many challenges but the crisis this

continent faces right now the crisis I

believe we all face together is one of

our own making

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 that you can do for the

American people who elected me and

elected president Trump you need

Democratic mandates to accomplish

anything of value in the coming years

have we learned nothing that thin

mandates produce unstable results but

there is so much of value that can be

accomplished with the kind of democratic

mandate that I think will come from

being more responsive to the voices of

your citizens if you're going to enjoy

competitive economies if you're going to

enjoy affordable energy and secure

Supply

chains then you need mandates to govern

because you have to make difficult

choices to enjoy all of these things and

of course we know that very well in

America you cannot win a democratic

mandate by censoring your opponents or

putting them in jail whether that's the

leader of the oppos opposition a humble

Christian praying in her own home or a

journalist trying to report the

news nor can you win one by disregarding

your basic electorate on questions like

who gets to be a part of our shared

society and of all the pressings

challenges that the Nations represented

here face I believe there is nothing

more

urgent than Mass

migration today almost one in5 people

living in this country moved here from

abroad that is of course an all-time

high it's a similar number by the way in

the United States also an all-time high

the number of immigrants who entered the

EU from non-eu countries doubled between

2021 and 2022 alone and of course it's

gotten much higher since and we know

this situation it didn't materialize in

a vacuum it's the result of a series of

conscious decisions made by politicians

all over the continent and others across

the world over the span of a

decade we saw the horrors wrought by

these decisions yesterday in this very

City and of course I can't bring it up

again without thinking about the

terrible victims who had a a beautiful

winter day in Munich ruined our thoughts

and prayers are with them and will

remain with them but why did this happen

in the first place it's a terrible story

but it's one we've heard way too many

times in Europe and unfortunately 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 how many times must we suffer

these appalling setbacks before we

change course and take our shared

civilization in a New

Direction no voter on this continent

went to The Ballot Box to open the

floodgates to Millions of unvetted

immigrants but you know what they did

vote for in England they voted for

brexit and agree or disagree they voted

for it and more and more all over Europe

they're voting for political leaders who

promis to put an end to out ofcontrol

migration now I happen to agree with a

lot of these concerns but you don't have

to agree with me I just think that

people care about their homes they care

about their dreams they care about their

safety and their capacity to provide

fors eles and their children and they're

smart I think this is one of the most

important things I've learned in my

brief time in politics contrary to what

you might hear a couple mountains over

in Davos the citizens of all of our

Nations don't generally think of

themselves as educated animals or as

interchangeable cogs of a global economy

and it's hardly surprising that they

don't want to be shuffled about or

relentlessly ignored by their leaders

and it is the business of democracy to

adjudicate these big questions at The

Ballot Box I believe that dismissing

people dismissing their concerns or

worse yet shutting down media shutting

down elections or shutting PE people out

of the political process protects

nothing in fact it is the most Surefire

way to destroy

democracy and speaking up and expressing

opinions isn't election interference

even when people Express

outside your own country and even when

those people are very

influential and trust me I say this with

all humor if American democracy can

survive 10 years of Greta thunberg's

scolding you guys can survive a few

months of Elon

Musk but what German

democracy what no democracy American

German or european Will Survive is

telling millions of Voters that their

thoughts and concerns their aspirations

their pleas for Relief are invalid or

Unworthy of even being

considered democracy rests on the sacred

principle that the voice of the people

matters there's no room for firewalls

you either uphold the principle or you

don't Europeans the people have a voice

European leaders have a choice and my

strong belief is that we do not need to

be afraid of the future you can Embrace

what your people tell you even when it's

surprising even when you don't agree and

if you do so you can face the future

with certainty and with confidence

knowing that the nation stands behind

each of you and that to me is the great

magic of democracy it's not in these

Stone buildings or beautiful hotels it's

not even in the great institutions that

we have built together as a shared

Society to believe in democracy is to

understand that each of our citizens has

wisdom and has a voice and if we refuse

to listen to that voice even our most

successful fights will secure very

little as Pope John Paul the second in

my view one of the most extraordinary

champions of democracy on this continent

or any other once said do not be afraid

we shouldn't be afraid of our people

even when they express views that

disagree with their leadership thank you

all good luck to all of you God bless

[Applause]

you ladies

gentl ladies and gentlemen

have