During an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended Vice President JD Vance’s recent speech in Germany, in which Vance warned about the dangers of European censorship.
Rubio pushed back against host Margaret Brennan’s assertion that free speech had been “weaponized” during the Holocaust, rejecting the comparison between modern speech freedoms and the actions of Nazi Germany.
Brennan questioned Rubio about Vance’s remarks, which framed censorship as a “threat from within” to European democracies. She suggested that history provided an example of the dangers of unchecked speech.
“Well, he was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide, and he met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups. The context of that was changing the tone of it. And you know that,” Brennan said.
This is being shared everywhere, and it should be, because it’s historically illiterate, antagonistic to a fundamental value, and done so condescendingly from a highly paid “news” desk.
— Will Cain (@willcain) February 16, 2025
CBS Margaret Brennan blames free speech for the Holocaust.
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Rubio forcefully rejected the claim that free speech played a role in enabling the Holocaust. “Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide,” he responded. “The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews and they hated minorities, and they hated those that they— they had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews. There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none. There was also no opposition in Nazi Germany.”
He argued that Vance’s speech was about the growing intolerance of dissenting viewpoints in Europe, particularly in the context of modern laws restricting speech.
Rubio stated that an unwillingness to tolerate debate or differing opinions threatens the fundamental values that have united transatlantic allies for decades.
“I think allies and friends and partners that have worked together now for 80 years should be able to speak frankly to one another in open forums without being offended, insulted, or upset,” Rubio said.
“I spoke to Foreign Ministers from multiple countries throughout Europe. Many of them probably didn’t like the speech or didn’t agree with it, but they were continuing to engage with us on all sorts of issues that unite us.”
He went on to emphasize that global forums should be spaces for open debate, not echo chambers where everyone is expected to hold the same views. “That is a forum in which you’re supposed to be inviting people to give speeches, not basically a chorus where everyone is saying the exact same thing. That’s not always going to be the case when it’s a collection of democracies where leaders have the right and the privilege to speak their minds in forums such as these.”
The debate over free speech follows Vance’s remarks at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, where he highlighted concerns about European restrictions on speech, mass migration, and other internal challenges.
While most discussions at the conference focused on geopolitical threats like Russia and China, Vance suggested that Europe’s censorship policies could be equally damaging to democratic values.
He compared modern European restrictions on speech to Soviet-era policies, criticizing officials who use terms like “misinformation” and “disinformation” to discredit individuals with opposing viewpoints. He argued that these labels are often applied to those who simply express controversial or unpopular ideas.
Vance specifically called out the European Union for censoring what it defines as “hateful content” and accused the United Kingdom of moving away from conscience rights by restricting religious and political speech in certain contexts. He warned that allowing governments to determine what constitutes acceptable speech is a dangerous precedent.
The speech sparked controversy across European political circles, with some officials dismissing Vance’s concerns as exaggerated. Others, however, acknowledged growing unease over restrictive speech laws and their impact on democratic discourse.