The vice president also criticized high levels of immigration, echoing themes that fueled Donald Trump’s return to power in the U.S. Vance said he’d pray for the victims of Thursday’s attack in Munich, where a migrant drove a car into a crowd, injuring dozens of people.
But with Europe clamoring for clarity after comments from Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that cast serious doubts on America’s security commitment to Ukraine and Europe, Vance’s speech barely mentioned Ukraine and defense spending, the topics preoccupying European leaders in meetings with U.S. officials here.
“It was stunning in it failing to address the urgent concerns that are at the forefront of the European mind,” Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, said in an interview. “It missed the moment, and he missed a critical opportunity to clarify the administration’s confused and contradictory signals about Ukraine and Russia.”
Republicans in Munich remarked on the omissions too, including Senator John Cornyn of Texas.
“I didn’t get the sense he came today to talk about Ukraine which is at the top of everybody’s list here but rather to comment on things like freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion and those sorts of shared values between Europe and the United States,” Cornyn said in an interview. “So it was a narrowly tailored speech and not one designed to address all the questions that people have about American policy in this new administration.”
Speaking at a POLITICO Pub panel on the sidelines of the conference, Seth Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said he was onboard with Vance to the extent that governments should respect election results and not censor the media — but he said Vance was a poor messenger. Vance, he said, refuses to say he respects the results of the 2020 election Trump lost.
