CBS News host Margaret Brennan claimed during an interview over the weekend that the Holocaust was caused because free speech was “weaponized.”
The left-wing host made the highly controversial remarks during an interview with Secretary of State Marco Rubio while talking about Vice President JD Vance’s speech in Europe last week where he criticized the continent’s leaders for abandoning certain values, like free speech.
“What did all of this accomplish, other than irritating our allies?” Brennan asked.
“Why would our allies or anybody be irritated by free speech and by someone giving their opinion?” Rubio responded. “We are, after all, democracies. The Munich – Munich Security Conference is largely a conference of democracies, in which one of the things that we cherish and value is the ability to speak freely and provide your opinions.”
Rubio said that a lot of things that Vance said “needed to be said” and that it was perplexing that anyone “would be upset about it.”
“People are allowed – you know, you don’t have to agree on someone’s speech,” he said. “I happen to agree with a lot of what he said, but you don’t have to agree with someone’s speech to at least appreciate the fact they have a right to say it and that you should listen to it and see whether those criticisms are valid.”
Brennan responded: “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,” she claimed. “The context of that was changing the tone of it. And you know that, that the censorship was specifically about the right.”
Rubio fired back: “Well, I have to disagree with you. I have to disagree with you.”
“Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide,” he noted. “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,” he continued. “There was also no opposition in Nazi Germany. They were a sole and only party that governed that country. So that’s not an accurate reflection of history.”
WATCH:
This is the first time I’ve heard the theory that the Holocaust wasn’t conducted with gas chambers but with free speech zones. pic.twitter.com/mpWm6UH2F4
— Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) February 16, 2025
