It seemed like Vice President JD Vance stood alone for free speech at the Munich Security Conference. The Conference’s chairman decried Vance’s critique of European "hate speech" laws, “60 Minutes” treated Germany’s “online hate speech” police raids as normal, and CBS News’ Margaret Brennan peddled the narrative even further, by suggesting that the Nazis “weaponized” free speech to orchestrate the Holocaust. “This is extraordinarily dangerous,” Glenn says. But if America must stand alone to defend free speech, so be it.
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: So last hour, I played a little bit of J.D. Vance's speech at the German -- or Munich Security Conference. And he talked about how free speech is under attack. In Europe!
And he didn't just point out that it was Europe, that was having this problem.
But he said, it had to end. But let's not stand here and point the finger at you. Pragmatism let's point it to ourselves as well. Cut seven.
GLENN: 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 contester had likely 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. Just as the Biden 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.
And 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.
GLENN: Wow! Didn't go over well. In fact, here's the Munich Security Conference chairperson, closing out the convention. Listen to this.
VOICE: This conference started as a transatlantic conference after this speech of Vice President Vance on Friday. We have to fear that our common value base is not that common anymore. I'm very grateful to all those European politicians that spoke out, and reaffirmed the values and principles, that they are defending.
No one did this better than President Zelinsky. Let me conclude that this becomes difficult.
(applauding)
GLENN: He was applauded for crying. That we don't have the same values in common anymore.
STU: Hmm.
GLENN: If this is the way Germany and the rest of Europe feels about freedom of speech, then, yes. We don't have the same values. And I don't care if we stand completely alone! We've done it before. And when it comes to freedom of the individual, if that's what it takes, that's what we must become. We have to square our shoulders and remember our principles. Yes! If you want to shut down free expression and free speech, which means you have to let the worst be said, so you can actually have dialogue, learn from one another, learn from the past, and not just become a zombie robot, with an out-of-control government that you can never speak against. Well, that's who we are!
That's what we stand against. I will tell you, that their own people -- I can guarantee you, are not for it. How do I know? Well, let me show you what happened on 60 minutes. Here's 60 minutes, joining a German police censorship raid.
(music)
VOICE: It's 6:01 on a Tuesday morning. And we are with state police as they rated this apartment in northwest Germany.
Inside, six armed officers search a suspect's home. Then seized his laptop and cell phone. Prosecutors say, those electronics may have been used to commit a crime. The crime? Posting a racist cartoon online.
At the exact same time, across Germany, more than 50 similar raids played out. Part of what prosecutors say, is a coordinated effort to curb online hate speech in Germany.
GLENN: Now, I don't like hate speech. I don't like seeing racist cartoons. But that is part of life! It depends on who is in power. On how you define hate. And when you have a government, able to take away inalienable rights, you have a real problem on your hand. Sixty minutes continues.
VOICE: Is it a crime to insult somebody in public?
VOICE: Yes, it is. Of course.
VOICE: And it's a crime to insult them online as well?
VOICE: Even higher, insulting someone on the internet.
VOICE: Why?
VOICE: Because in internet, it stays there. If we are talking face-to-face, you insult me, I insult you. Okay. Finished. But if you're on the internet, if I insult a politician.
VOICE: Then it takes around forever.
The prosecutors explain German law also prohibits the spread of malicious gospel, violent threats, and fake quotes.
VOICE: If somebody posts something that is not true. And then somebody else reposts it or likes it, are they committing a crime?
VOICE: In the case of reposting with, it's a crime as well. Because the reader can't distinguish between whether you just invented this or just reposted it?
VOICE: The punishment for breaking hate speech laws can include jail time for repeat offenders.
GLENN: Jail time. Jail time.
If you say something offense about a politician. Did anybody catch that? If you say something offensive about a politician. You can be charged with a height crime. You do it several times, and you will go to prison!
STU: That's a question of how much do we have in in common, before J.D. Vance's speech?
Apparently, not that much.
GLENN: Clearly not.
STU: If those are your laws, it's a crime?
You can't trust people to be able to decipher whether a quote is fake or not?
It's -- it's not their responsibility to -- to look it up themselves?
GLENN: Listen to cut three. CBS. Not pushing back.
VOICE: To build their cases, investigators scour social media, and use public and government data.
They say, sometimes social media companies will provide information to prosecutors, but not always. So the task force employs special software investigators to help unmask anonymous users.
VOICE: So this is suggest you kill people seeking asylum here.
VOICE: He says his unit has prosecuted about 750 hate speech cases over the last four years, but it was a 2021 case, involving a local politician, named Andy Groat, that captured the country's attention.
Groat complained about a tweet, that called him a pimmel. A German word for the male anatomy. That triggered a police raid, and accusations of excessive censorship by the government. As prosecutors explained to us in Germany, it's okay to debate politics online. But it can be a crime to call anyone a pimmel, even a politician.
VOICE: So it sounds like you're saying, it's okay to criticize a politician's policy. But not to say, I think you're a jerk and an idiot?
VOICE: Exactly. Like you're a son of a bitch. Excuse me for -- these words have nothing to do with a political discussions or a contribution of a discussion.
STU: And it's up to him to decipher whether it contributes or not.
GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. Boy, you better be careful if you're going over to Germany any time soon.
GLENN: 60 Minutes finally asks about some free speech issues. Listen to this.
VOICE: That this feels like the surveillance that Germany conducted 80 years ago. How do you respond to that?
VOICE: There is no surveillance.
VOICE: (inaudible) is a CEO of Hate Aid, a Berlin-based human rights organization, that supports victims of online violence.
VOICE: In the United States, a lot of people say, this is restricting free speech. It's a threat to democracy.
VOICE: Free speech needs boundaries.
GLENN: Hmm.
STU: Ah.
VOICE: In the case of Germany. These boundaries are part of our Constitution. Without boundaries, a very small group of people can rely on endless freedom to say anything that they want.
GLENN: Endless freedom.
STU: Oh, my gosh. It's scary.
VOICE: And your fear is, if people were freely attacked online, that they will withdraw from the discussion?
VOICE: This is not only a fear. It's already taking place. Already half of the internet users in Germany are afraid to express their political opinion. Many participate in public debates online anymore, half of the internet users.
STU: Of course. You're putting them in prison. When they say the wrong thing.
GLENN: I mean, it is Gestapo, with today's technology.
I've warned you. With today's technology, and what is right around the corner, you put a Hitler in charge of it.
STU: And there's not a Jew left in the world.
There's no place to hide in the entire world. This is extraordinarily dangerous.
Now, that's -- that was the extent of the CBS pushback on the Germans.
STU: That was a lot though.
GLENN: Then you get Marco Rubio. And they go to Marco Rubio, to ask him about this. Listen.
VOICE: 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.
GLENN: Changing the tone.
VOICE: Well, I have to disagree with you. No. I have to disagree with you.
Free speech is not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by authoritarian Nazi regime, that happened to be genocidal, because they hated Jews and they hated minorities and they hated those -- the 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. They were the sole and only party that governed that country. So that's not an accurate reflection of history.
STU: Obviously.
GLENN: The free speech caused the Holocaust.
STU: Amazing.
GLENN: Free speech.
You couldn't speak out against the Nazis.
Who doesn't learn that in school? Well, probably most Americans. And clearly the journalists here in America. You had no free speech! How do you get everybody to give the Heil Hitler salute?
You don't do that by becoming popular. They didn't. They did it by beating people in the streets.
You will do this, when we salute. If you don't, we'll beat you to death in the streets. And we can get away with it. Because our guy is in power. There was no free speech! This is insanity! Now, I want to show you what -- what J.D. Vance said, that made the guy cry.
In Germany!
Now, I want you to remember that the Munich security conference chair cried at the closing of the conference.
Cried!
Because he realized the United States was no longer on the same side as Germany and Europe!
Now, that seems crazy. But, no. I'm not on the same side of people who want to silence anyone.
I am not for the silencing of people on the left here, I am not for silencing the people in the middle. Or the right.
Even to the extreme. Free speech is an absolute!
Unless you're calling for violence and it actually turns into violence. No! But you can say whatever it is you want. I know that sounds extreme. It didn't used to. But apparently, it does now.
Here's what J.D. Vance said. And if you think that Germany is the problem. Listen to this from J.D. Vance. Listen to this.
VOICE: I look to Brussels where the EU commissars warn 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 prepare police have carried out raids against citizens, suspected of posting antifeminist comments online. As part of, quote, combating misogyny on the internet.
A day of action. I look to Sweden, where two weeks ago, the government convicted a Christian activist for participating in Koran burnings that resulted in his friends' 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 have put basic liberties of religious Britains in the crosshairs.
A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith conner, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and Army veteran. With the heinous crime of sanding 50 meters from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes. Not obstructing anyone.
Not interacting with anyone. Just silently praying on his own.
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 girlfriend 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 meters of an abortion facility.
He was sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution. Now, I wish I could say 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. And Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear is in retreat.
GLENN: What part of that, did you disagree with.
What part of that makes you want to embrace the European Union?
For me, it's quite the opposite. I've always believed that Europe, our brothers and sisters, and we're fine.
And we should help one another. But I have to tell you, I no longer am comfortable with a single dollar going over to Europe, to defend those kinds of policies.
You're not on the same side.
We are not on the same side! If you violate freedom of speech, that way.
And remember, this is why Klaus Schwab told Europe, just believe in the system.
Well, what is the system?
We found out, the system is, if the people vote for a candidate that is not going to play ball. If they are at all in line with freedom of speech, they're a radical, need to be shut down.
And we cancel that election. Until the people get it right!
That's a dictatorship! We are seeing the hatred of the old Germany. And Europe. Start to grow again. And Europe could become a very large foe of freedom.