A German-language daily newspaper that caught heat for publishing a birthday tribute to Clint Eastwood that included decades-old quotes has issued a statement after it was accused of being fake news. 
The controversy kicked off earlier this week when Eastwood, 95, referred to the article in Kurier as false. The actor released a statement to <a href="https://deadline.com/2025/06/clint-eastwood-assails-austrian-interview-in-austrian-kurier-entirely-phony-1236420771/">Deadline</a> to “set the record straight” and asserted that he “never gave an interview to an Austrian publication called Kurier, or any other writer in recent weeks, and that the interview is entirely phony.”
In the statement, the outlet noted that the writer they contracted for the piece, Elisabeth Sereda, used old quotes from Eastwood that created the perception that she had just interviewed the iconic film legend. In reality, Sereda used a mashup of quotes from Eastwood lifted from different interviews dating back to 1976.  
“There was no immediate reason to doubt that she had interviewed Eastwood,” a translated version of the Kurier statement <a href="https://kurier.at/kultur/medien/clint-eastwood-interview-hollywood-kurier-in-eigener-sache/403047088">said</a>. Outlet reps noted how Sereda had a long history of interviewing celebrities and was a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
The statement went on to note that Sereda had spoken to Eastwood 18 times during roundtable discussions and that none of the quotes were altered. However, the outlet admitted that framing the article as an interview rather than a tribute did mislead audiences. 
“Even though no quote is fabricated, the interviews are documented, and the allegation of falsification can be refuted, we will no longer work with the author in the future because transparency and our strict editorial standards are paramount to us,” the statement concluded.
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The outlet has since removed the interview from its website. 
Sereda defended her actions in a statement to <a href="https://variety.com/2025/film/news/is-clint-eastwood-interview-real-old-quotes-1236417323/">Variety</a>, again claiming it was enough that only real quotes were used.
“Quotes from Mr. Eastwood cited in the story are culled from several of those 14 press conferences I attended and covered,” Sereda told the outlet.
The original birthday tribute, which appeared on Kurier, got the most attention for being critical of remakes and franchises. 
“I long for the good old days when screenwriters wrote movies like ‘Casablanca’ in small bungalows on the studio lot. When everyone had a new idea,” Eastwood is quoted as saying. “We live in an era of remakes and franchises. I’ve shot sequels three times, but I haven’t been interested in that for a long while. My philosophy is: do something new or stay at home.”
Variety noted that this particular quote might have come from the mid-1980s. 
Eastwood is also quoted as saying he didn’t plan on retiring “for a long time,” despite being five years shy of triple digits.
Eastwood has established a reputation in Hollywood as a conservative and supporter of GOP politicians, including presidential candidates Mitt Romney and the late John McCain. In 2012, he made an appearance at the Republican National Convention, where he made headlines for addressing an empty chair that represented then-President Barack Obama.

Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood Calls Out ‘Entirely Phony’ Article About Him; Writer Responds

Clint Eastwood Calls Out 'Entirely Phony' Article About Him; Writer Responds

Celebrities

Germany

Journalism

World

Earlier this month, we celebrated the 80th anniversary of V-E Day, “Victory in Europe,” which marked the end of the European Theater’s part in the Second World War. It is a date certainly worth commemorating as it closed one of the darkest chapters in European history, which was the rise and fall of Hitler’s Third Reich.
For the countries in what today we call Western Europe that languished for years under the jackboot of Nazi oppression — France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Greece — the Allied victory truly represented liberation.
<div id="attachment_925633" style="width: 875px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-925633" class="size-large wp-image-925633" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-3093644-865x576.jpg" alt="Ecstatic crowds celebrating VE Day in London's Piccadilly, at the end of World War II, 8th May 1945. Original Publication: Picture Post - 1991 - This Was VE Day in London - pub. 1945 (Photo by Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" width="865" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-3093644-865x576.jpg 865w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-3093644-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-3093644-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-3093644.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 865px) 100vw, 865px" />Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images</div>
But there was another side to V-E Day that seems to get glossed over. And that is the less happy fate of the Eastern European nations who were not liberated by the Anglo-Americans rolling in from the west, but rather the Red Army coming in from the east. And for those nations — Poland, Hungary, then-Czechoslovakia, the Baltic states — V-E Day merely meant trading one brutal oppressor for another. Indeed, as the Allies were closing in from both sides, the dark joke in Germany was “Optimists are learning English, pessimists are learning Russian.”
We have been conditioned for over 80 years to viscerally recoil at the very mention of the Führer’s name. Just say “Hitler” and the mind conjures up images of the Holocaust and mass murder of millions of innocents carried out by robotic, goose-stepping stormtroopers wearing their signature coal scuttle helmets.
Yet, when we utter the name “Stalin,” no such dark imagery materializes in the collective mind. And yet, in terms of pure numbers, it can be argued that the Soviet “Man of Steel” had more blood on his hands than even Hitler. Why the indifferent reaction?
It could perhaps be attributed to a curious media/academic tendency of apologetics towards communism. As polls consistently show, both of these institutions lean very much to the left. And Stalinism is the ultimate expression of their collective leftist ideology come to fruition in all its destructive inevitability. During the 1930s, for example, dispatches from Moscow-based New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty were shamefully obsequious towards Stalin, offering up for his readers images of a prosperous, happy communist USSR workers’ paradise.
No matter that the Soviet dictator was coldly stripping Ukraine of food and inducing a famine in 1932-1933 (called the “Holodomor”) during which anywhere from 3.5 to 5 million Ukrainians died of starvation — atrocities Duranty labeled as a “big scare” and “exaggeration.”
Then there was Stalin’s 1929-1933 genocide against the Kulaks (wealthy peasants who resisted his policies) to facilitate the expropriation of farmland. In one directive, the Soviet leader declared, “We must smash the Kulaks, liquidate them as a class.” Millions died.
And what of the estimated 700,000 to 6 million who died in Stalin’s Gulag, the far-flung network of concentration camps where he sent his enemies, whom the hyper-paranoid dictator saw all around him. (Figures vary widely; the latter number comes from dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who was imprisoned for eight years.)
Starting in 1936, Stalin wiped out his political and military adversaries in a series of show trials called “The Great Purge.” Stalin’s biographer Oleg V. Khlevniuk estimates that 1.6 million were arrested, with 700,000 shot; no one knows how many died of torture.
<div id="attachment_925699" style="width: 883px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-925699" class="size-large wp-image-925699" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-104408516-873x576.jpg" alt="RUSSIA - JANUARY 01: Joseph STALIN, the supreme ruler of the USSR, working in his garden around 1935 to 1936 while Lavrenti BERIA, the chief of the Soviet secret police, poses with STALIN'S daughter, SVETLANA, on his knees. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)" width="873" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-104408516-873x576.jpg 873w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-104408516-300x198.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-104408516-768x507.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-104408516.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 873px) 100vw, 873px" />Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images</div>
During the Second World War on the Eastern Front, Stalin was so profligate with the lives of his people that by the time the red banner of the USSR was flying over the Reichstag in the conquered Berlin, some 27 million Soviets lay dead. Many as a result of combat and German atrocities, of course, but also due to Stalin’s unimaginative strategies that callously offered up both his soldiers and civilians before the guns of the Wehrmacht as fodder.
Whereas Hitler’s policies were driven by twisted racial hatred, delusions of grandeur, a sense of grievance on behalf of a nation he felt was ill-treated at Versailles, and, by the end, drug-addled bona fide madness, Stalin in some ways is even more disturbing as there was a cold, calculating, and ruthless nature to his machinations.
Stalin will also go down as one of the most treacherous characters in history. It should be remembered that until Hitler turned on him and attacked Russia in June 1941, Stalin and the German dictator were allies. Hitler only felt secure enough to invade Poland and trigger the Second World War because Berlin and Moscow had just entered into a non-aggression pact the month before. In fact, people often forget that in September 1939, Poland was not just invaded by the Wehrmacht but also by the Red Army. After which, Stalin’s NKVD promptly rounded up 22,000 members of Poland’s military and intelligentsia, marched them to the Katyn Forest, and shot them all dead.
<div id="attachment_925683" style="width: 949px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-925683" class="size-large wp-image-925683" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-875641680-939x576.jpg" alt="9/28/39: Russo -German Pact Molotov signing pact directly behind is J. Von Ribbentrop on the right is Josef Stalin. (Photo by Bettmann/Corbis/Getty Images)" width="939" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-875641680-939x576.jpg 939w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-875641680-300x184.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-875641680-768x471.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-875641680.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 939px) 100vw, 939px" />Bettmann/Corbis/Getty Images</div>
Says historian Victor Davis Hanson: “Of the six major belligerents of World War II, on the Axis side, Italy, Japan, and Germany, and the United States, Russia, and Britain, Stalin made a deal with every one of them at one time or another, and he honored the ones with the Axis better than he did us.”
But, unlike Hitler, Stalin’s image during the war was softened by the Roosevelt administration and pliant media due to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. FDR, especially, was hopelessly naïve about the duplicitous nature of the man whose military he was now supplying through Lend-Lease. As far as he saw it, the Russians were now our allies after all. And, frankly, we needed the Red Army to kill as many Germans as possible before we invaded France. The mass murderer of Moscow was thus re-christened “Uncle Joe” Stalin. And as it was his Red Army more than any other that destroyed the Wehrmacht, what he did to his own people and those in Eastern Europe were swept under the rug until the Cold War commenced in the late 1940s. After all, as the saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
<div id="attachment_925619" style="width: 762px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-925619" class="size-large wp-image-925619" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-186649926-752x576.jpg" alt="Russian leader Marshal Josef Stalin and President Franklin Roosevelt confer in the Soviet Embassy during the Tehran Conference, Tehran, Iran, December 7, 1943. (Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)" width="752" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-186649926-752x576.jpg 752w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-186649926-300x230.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-186649926-768x588.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-186649926.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" />Underwood Archives/Getty Images</div>
80 years after the war in Europe ended, modern Germany is still horrified by, and ashamed of, their Nazi past. But to this day, even in a post-Cold War Russia in which information regarding the horrific crimes carried out by the Bolsheviks is now widely accessible, Stalin is revered by the Russian people. A 2021 poll by the Levada Center found that 70% of Russians held a mostly or very favorable view of Stalin.
And that same lack of revulsion over Stalin’s decades-long reign of terror carries over into the West today as a misguided affinity for Marxism slithers its insidious way through the halls of so-called higher education. A poll by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation found that millennials, particularly younger ones, displayed a dreadful ignorance of communism and even support for it. Almost half of Americans between the ages of 16 and 20 “said they would vote for a socialist, while 21% would go so far as to back a Communist.” Even more shocking was that a “third of millennials say they believe more people were killed under George W. Bush than Joseph Stalin.” This is criminal negligence on the part of academia — and dangerous.
I have a shirt that reads “Communism killed 100 million people and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.” Though gallows humor, the message is also a searing indictment of a left-leaning academic and media establishment that are utterly dismissive of the crimes perpetrated by the founding fathers of their own defunct and cruel ideologies. The verdict of history should have condemned Soviet communism to the ashbin of history decades ago. But a fatal attraction for this defunct ideology that invariably leads to mass murder is alive and well in the West today. This is a tragedy — and dangerous.
* * *
Brad Schaeffer is a commodities fund manager, author, and columnist whose articles have appeared on the pages of The Daily Wire, The Wall Street Journal, NY Post, NY Daily News, National Review, The Hill, The Federalist, Zerohedge, and other outlets. He is the author of three <a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07MQJBJSD?ccs_id=55112527-86f6-4c89-b82e-a96d6869abed" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07MQJBJSD?ccs_id%3D55112527-86f6-4c89-b82e-a96d6869abed&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1736518135479000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3K_WhJtiUZw7LF1PwSIHtH">books</a>. Follow him on <a href="https://x.com/bschaeffer123" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://x.com/bschaeffer123&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1736518135479000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0P6pRoAqcBhUQ1W0qwN5rH">X/Twitter</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
This article originally appeared on the author&#8217;s <a href="https://bradschaeffer.substack.com/p/for-eastern-europe-v-e-day-commemorates">Substack.</a>

Stalin In Moscow

From Reich To Red: Why Stalin Still Haunts Us 80 Years After V-E Day

Adolf Hitler

Communism

Europe

History

Josef Stalin

Leftism

Russia

World War II

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel allegedly covered up a report from her country&#8217;s foreign intelligence service that concluded that the likelihood that the coronavirus pandemic originated from a Chinese lab was overwhelming.
The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), German&#8217;s version of the CIA, conducted an intelligence gathering operation dubbed “Saaremaa” that concluded that there was an 80%-95% likelihood that the pandemic originated during a lab accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The findings were contained in a report from a joint investigation by two German newspapers, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Zeit, that alleged Merkel decided to keep the bombshell that she learned about in 2020 “under lock and key.”
Merkel likely made the decision to keep the explosive report secret at least in-part because she did not want to help President Donald Trump&#8217;s re-election prospects in 2020 when much of the world resisted his well-founded claims that China was responsible for what happened.
The report and its coverup by Merkel are likely to sink her approval numbers even lower as she grapples with facing intense backlash over her disastrous policies that have wreaked havoc on her country and Europe.
The backlash against Merkel hit new levels after she wrote a new memoir hoping to “secure her crumbling legacy,” The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/angela-merkel-german-people-to-blame-for-the-problems-millions-of-refugees-are-causing">reported</a>, which noted that “the effort is backfiring.”
The more than 700-page book was “riling up even some of her most ardent supporters” because she does not believe that any of her failed policies were bad for the country — including allowing millions of Muslim refugees from the Middle East to be resettled in Germany.
Powerful German state broadcaster ARD titled the headline of their report on her book: “Much pride, little self-reflection.”
Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party blame her directly for the problems that the country is facing and they say that her memoir is making things even worse.
“The publication of this unrepentant, self-righteous book at a time of economic and political turmoil like this is hurting [her political party],” said former senior Merkel official Nico Lange.
The report said that her approval rating has plummeted from her time as a popular elected official to someone that the German public has turned against. Her allies overseas have abandoned support for her, the report said.
The most shocking part of the report focused specifically on her retelling of why she allowed millions of Muslim refugees into Germany.
Merkel said that it was “fully irrelevant whether they had a right to stay in Germany or not” when she let them enter the country.
She then blamed the German people for the problems that the refugees have caused:
<blockquote>The consequences—failed integration, ballooning welfare spending, rising crime, political polarization—can be partly blamed, she writes, on Germans’ lack of “will to change.”
In the decade since she instituted her open-door policy, immigration has changed the face of Germany and its political dynamics. An average of around 400,000 immigrants—the population of a large German city—have entered each year, and Germany now spends as much on refugees as it does on defense.</blockquote>
The report noted that the phrase that Merkel repeatedly used to justify her failed policies — that she had “no alternative” but to do what she did — served as the inspiration for the Alternative for Germany, or AfD.

GERMANY-POLITICS-VOTE-MERKEL

Angela Merkel Covered Up Explosive German Intel Report Blaming Chinese Lab For Pandemic

Angela Merkel

COVID

Wuhan Institute of Virology

A suspect is in custody after ramming their car into a crowded market in Mannheim, Germany, on Monday.
No information about the suspect has been released so far, but eyewitnesses <a href="https://www.mannheimer-morgen.de/orte/mannheim_artikel,-mannheim-auto-rast-offenbar-durch-mannheimer-innenstadt-mindestens-ein-toter-_arid,2289139.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper that the suspect drove from a water tower near the market to the parade ground, ramming into multiple people.
&#8220;As part of the search measures that were immediately initiated, a suspect was identified and arrested. No further, reliable information can currently be released beyond the information published so far,&#8221; Mannheim Police said, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/suspected-car-ramming-mannheim-germany-rcna194469" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to NBC News</a>.
Police didn’t provide further information on the number of people injured or the severity of their injuries.
The attack took place at a carnival market that opened on Thursday. Attendees were enjoying food stalls, rides, and games when the attack occurred. None of the vendors or employees of the carnival were injured in the attack, according to initial information from the Morgen.
One eyewitness told the outlet that the driver rammed into barricades and hit multiple people. One person was found dead among those barricades.
“It is terrible here, nobody knows what happened, you only see injured people and the dead, and you don’t know what to do,” one employee told the outlet.
The attack comes just two weeks after an Afghan national rammed his vehicle into a crowd in Munich, Germany, killing two people — including a small child — and injuring dozens more, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dozens-injured-after-afghan-national-plows-car-into-crowd-in-germany-police" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> at the time.
“The suspect is a 24-year-old man of Afghan nationality,” Munich Police said in a statement after the incident. “He drove a car into a gathering in the Seidlstrasse area from behind.&#8221;
The suspect in that case was believed to have an extremist background and was “known to the police for drug and theft offenses,” according to the German publication Bild.
Bavarian Minister-President Markus Söder said at the time that the ramming was being treated as “an attack.”
“The attack shows that something has to change in Germany – and quickly!” he said.
Less than two months before the Munich attack, a Saudi national killed at least six people and injured more than 200 others after ramming his car into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany. As The Daily Wire reported, Saudi Arabia had repeatedly warned Germany that the man had extremist views, providing their first warning back in 2007, one year after the man entered Germany. In 2007 and 2008, Saudi Arabia requested that the man be extradited to his home country, but Germany didn’t oblige.

Attack in Mannheim, Germany

1 Dead, Several Injured In Latest Car Ramming Attack In Germany

Crime

Now I know that many of you are feeling happy about the work the Trump administration has been doing so far. And I can understand that. They’ve accomplished some great things. They’ve rendered the lies of the news media as irrelevant as the maunderings of a mentally deranged man wandering the sidewalks shouting his paranoid delusions into the empty air until suddenly you think to yourself, ”Oh hey, look, that’s Brain Stelter.” They’ve protected girls from hulking predators who think they’re women instead of what they are, which is hulking predators who think they’re women instead of what they are. They’ve begun to ferret out government waste and fraud causing Democrats to pour into the streets crying “Give us back our waste and fraud!” which is even funnier to watch than that time Joe Biden fell down a flight of stairs and the news media told us this was the best and sharpest Joe Biden ever, which might have actually been true, which is part of what made it so funny, but still not as funny as watching Democrats protest the end of waste and fraud. Just in general, the Trump administration has fought back against the vast leftist conspiracy to dismantle western freedoms, so leftists can get back to doing fun leftist things, like in the sixties when they sang rock songs and used drugs and celebrated free sex until they realized, &#8220;Oh no, we’re in the Manson cult.&#8221; Those were the good old days, for leftists.
And yes, many of Trump’s actions have made ordinary Americans watch the news at night and then dance around their bedrooms in their underwear as if they were in some Chippendale revival of Riverdance or an underwear version of some big Broadway musical production number where everyone forms a kickline and sings about the brotherhood of man until your wife tells you knock it off and come to bed before you wake up the kids and anyway you look like an idiot.
But still, even in these moments of celebration, it’s important we note the times when the administration oversteps its mandate and does something we can’t approve of. Like the other day, for instance, when Vice President JD Vance gave a mean speech in Munich and made the Germans cry.
That’s not nice. After all, the Germans are our allies when they’re not trying to lay waste to human civilization, and here JD Vance was hectoring them about how they should stop censoring speech, and stop threatening to annul elections and stop letting millions of Islamists into their country to do jobs Germans have historically been able to do for themselves, like hating Jews and murdering people.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show">WATCH: The Andrew Klavan Show</a></h3>
And after the vice president’s speech, the German chair of the conference, Adolf von Shmendrick — or whatever his name was, I didn’t check because I thought we’d gotten rid of the Germans already, but apparently they’re back for some reason. Anyway, this Adolf von Shmendrick guy got up to speak and started choking back tears and saying it just wasn’t fair, the way America kept getting in Germany’s way every time Germany started to work up a really good head of steam. 
Between snuffles and sniffles and occasional sneezles and even a quiet boo hoo hoo, Chairman von Shmendrick said, “In World War One, Americans ruined our brilliant plan to wage trench warfare over fifteen feet of lifeless French mud for the rest of history. In World War Two, Americans reduced our nation to rubble after we had raised it to the very heights of barbarism. And now, when we finally figure out how to destroy Europe without firing a shot, you turn up again and lecture us about western values like free speech. Let me remind you, it was the German people of the 1920s who used hate speech laws to shut down Nazi rhetoric and prevent Hitler from making appearances, and that worked out great.”
So remember, my fellow Americans, as happy as we may be with the Trump administration’s efforts to restore American greatness, we must always maintain a concerned expression on our faces when we think of our sad European allies while we’re Riverdancing in our underwear.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. He is the bestselling author of the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fourth installment, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1613165536?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_3&amp;storeType=ebooks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A WOMAN UNDERGROUND</a>,” is now available. Follow him on X: @andrewklavan
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

MixCollage-21-Feb-2025-09-09-AM-1961

Mean JD Vance Makes Germans Cry

Andrew Klavan

Humor

JD Vance

Nazi Germany

President Trump

Satire

Margaret Brennan, the host of “Face the Nation,” must have skipped basic World War II history wherever she went to school. It’s hard to fathom any other explanation for the indefensible <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/cbs-host-blasted-bonkers-claim-110009274.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADK89IUcImGk1CrzoyQDLZccqWrRkEJnE-20e6ra9rUwvHv7TEmGpUUphNaxHdos_ma3LvO08Gduee51bRmZKYJYQ7_PZ0PuTmHtNcxxWvGu7RxIoSUVdaVfiDCadd_qpzOyTz7iDto-xOE9Sjx2I5Qv6rFXbe9v486BIckLtmF5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claim</a> she made about freedom of speech while she was debating—sorry, “interviewing”—Secretary of State Marco Rubio about Vice President Vance’s deserved chastisement of European governments for their censorship regimes.
Brennan’s claim that free speech in Europe is dangerous because in Nazi Germany it “was weaponized to conduct a genocide” is so historically wrong as to be laughable.
Brennan believes that free speech existed in Nazi Germany? Really? I know that’s untrue not only from history, but from the experiences of my own mother and grandmother, who filled my youth with stories of the government oppression they saw and experienced in the 1930s in Nazi Germany.
Secretary Rubio quickly hit back, correctly observing that “free speech wasn’t used to conduct genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime.”
Brennan obviously does not seem to understand the difference between censorship and propaganda. Free speech swiftly disappeared in Germany after the Nazi Party took control of the country, and propaganda—not free speech—began spewing out of the government as well as the newspapers, radio stations, and “journalists” that the Nazi Party controlled under its new “Reich Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda.”
Perhaps CBS should give Brennan an all-expense-paid trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. As their <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-propaganda-and-censorship" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Holocaust Encyclopedia</a> explains:
“When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the German constitution guaranteed freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Through decrees and laws, the Nazis abolished these civil rights…. Starting in 1934, it was illegal to criticize the Nazi government.”
The Nazis closed down or took over anti-Nazi newspapers. In another move to control communications, the Nazis passed the Schriftleitergesetz (also known as the Editorial Control Act) in 1933, a law that required all journalists to be licensed by the government to practice their profession. As the <a href="https://arolsen-archives.org/en/news/nazi-germanys-schriftleitergesetz-the-end-of-freedom-of-the-press/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Arolsen Archives</a> at the International Center on Nazi Persecution explains, anyone expressing anti-Nazi views would not be licensed and those who received licenses were “directly subordinate to the Ministry of Propaganda and accountable to the Ministry—instead of their publishers.”
The censorship regime didn’t just apply to the media of the time, newspapers and radio stations. It applied to ordinary Germans, too. Germans like my grandparents quickly learned that any criticism of the regime, any disagreement with the propaganda being taught to students in the public schools—even just a joke about Hitler—could lead to swift arrest and punishment.
Brennan apparently is unaware that the first German concentration camps were not set up when World War II started; they were opened almost as soon as Hitler and his party took over in the 1930s. Dachau, the <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/concentration-camps-1933-39" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first</a> such camp for political prisoners and anyone else who criticized or opposed the government, Hitler, or the Nazi Party, opened on March 22, 1933.
Dachau and the other camps <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/concentration-camps-1933-39" target="_blank" rel="noopener">were used</a> to “imprison and intimidate the leaders of political, social, and cultural movements that the Nazis perceived to be a threat to the survival of the regime.”
Freedom of speech used to “weaponize genocide”? Wrong! Freedom of speech disappeared into Dachau and the <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/concentration-camps-1933-39" target="_blank" rel="noopener">numerous</a> other camps set up throughout Germany.
In fact, these camps, whose purpose was to suppress free speech and all opposition to the Nazi’s hideous regime, “became the model for the Nazi concentration camp system” during the war that was used to murder millions of Jews and others whom the Nazis considered “subhumans,” and to imprison Nazi opponents like Lutheran Minister Martin Niemöller.
Niemöller famously <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-biography#:~:text=Then%20they%20came%20for%20me,imprisoned%20for%20opposing%20Hitler's%20regime." target="_blank" rel="noopener">criticized</a> himself and others for not speaking out sooner about the suppression of the Nazi regime, including its censorship, saying, “Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
What JD Vance did at the Munich Security Conference was to speak up for those Europeans whose freedom of speech is being violated today and for the vital importance of preserving that right. He was dead-on in criticizing countries like Germany and the United Kingdom, using specific <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/18/vance-speech-munich-full-text-read-transcript-europe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">examples</a> such as the German government going after individuals who post “anti-feminist” commentary online or the British government convicting an Army veteran of the “heinous crime” of silently praying close to an abortion clinic, if you can call 50 meters close.
Or the Swedish judge who commented on the recent criminal conviction of a Christian activist, saying that the country’s laws protecting free speech don’t extend to speech that risks “offending the group that holds that belief.” That is a perilous view that short circuits the ability of anyone to say anything critical about any belief because it might “offend” someone who holds that belief.
Vance admitted, “in the interest of truth,” that this was happening in our country, too. The Biden administration “threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation,” opinions that our own government disagreed with or didn’t like. But then Margaret Brennan probably sees nothing wrong with that either, since she believes freedom of speech can be weaponized if it allows unwoke, politically unacceptable opinions to be expressed.
Probably the most disappointing aspect of this whole affair—other than Margaret Brennan’s profound ignorance and apparent disdain for the First Amendment—is the hostile reception of European leaders to Vance justifiably calling them out.
The most important part of his presentation was the offer he made to cooperate with them in order to stop this type of misbehavior. “Just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds,” he said, “so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite, and I hope we can work together on that.”
“We may disagree with your view, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree,” said Vance.
For the citizens of Europe, including the members of my extended family who are still there, I can only hope that these EU governments finally start taking the same attitude as JD Vance towards their own citizens and stop raiding, arresting, investigating, and punishing them for expressing views that those governments disagree with or don’t like.
* * *
Hans von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Margaret Brennan

Fact-Check For Margaret Brennan: Free Speech Did Not Exist In Nazi Germany

CBS News

Marco Rubio

Vice President JD Vance doubled down on the tone of his Munich speech while at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday, saying that while he believed many European nations to be friends, that friendship was dependent on &#8220;shared values.&#8221;
Vance got mixed reviews from world leaders when he challenged European leaders to abandon recent efforts to suppress the political expressions of their own people, saying in part, &#8220;If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.&#8221;
After CPAC attendees gave Vance a loud — if a week late — standing ovation for his Munich remarks, he took a similar tone when talking about the United States&#8217; relationship with European nations moving forward.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/VP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@VP</a> Vance: &quot;The strength of those alliances with Europe depend on whether we take our societies in the right direction. That friendship is based on shared values. You do not have shared values if you&#39;re jailing people for saying we should close down our borders.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/ADCA8lWKKc">pic.twitter.com/ADCA8lWKKc</a>
&mdash; TheBlaze (@theblaze) <a href="https://twitter.com/theblaze/status/1892602977044627725?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 20, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Moderator Mercedes Schlapp asked Vance to elaborate on the relationship between Europe and the United States, and he laid it out in blunt fashion.
&#8220;Obviously we&#8217;re going to continue to have important alliances with Europe, but I really do think the strength of those alliances is going to depend on whether we take our societies in the right direction.&#8221;
Vance went on to say that American troops stationed in Germany helped to keep that nation safe on the taxpayers&#8217; dime, adding, &#8220;Do you think that the American taxpayer is going to stand for that if you get thrown in jail in Germany for posting a mean tweet? Of course, they&#8217;re not!&#8221;
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&#8220;So the point that I tried to make to our European friends — and I think that they&#8217;re our friends, I believe that, I know President Trump does — is that friendship is based on shared values,&#8221; Vance continued. &#8220;You do not have shared values if you&#8217;re jailing people for saying we should close down our border. You don&#8217;t have shared values if you cancel elections because you don&#8217;t like the result, and that happened in Romania. You don&#8217;t have — you do not have shared values if you&#8217;re so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up.&#8221;
&#8220;So let&#8217;s have shared values,&#8221; he concluded. &#8220;Let&#8217;s defend democracy, let&#8217;s have free expression, not just in the United States but all over the Western world. That is the path to strong alliances in Europe.&#8221;
Shortly after Vance&#8217;s speech last week, CBS News ran a &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; broadcast that highlighted Germany&#8217;s efforts to curtail &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/guest-on-60-minutes-claims-german-citizens-have-free-speech-but-there-are-limits" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hate speech</a>&#8221; on the internet — and network anchor Margaret Brennan accused Vance directly of irritating American allies, claiming that &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cbs-claims-free-speech-caused-the-holocaust" target="_blank" rel="noopener">free speech was weaponized</a>&#8221; to cause the Holocaust.

Key Speakers At Day One Of The Conservative Political Action Conference

Vance Doubles Down On Munich Speech: ‘Friendship Is Based On Shared Values’

Vance Doubles Down On Munich Speech: 'Friendship Is Based On Shared Values'

Free Speech

Global Politics

Politics

Vice President JD Vance got a standing ovation at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday for a speech he actually gave a week earlier in Munich, Germany, about the importance of pushing back against government censorship.
Moderator Mercedes Schlapp, the former White House Director of Strategic Communications, mentioned the speech, prompting applause from the audience. &#8220;I think they really liked it,&#8221; she said.
&#8220;I&#8217;m glad you guys liked it, not everybody liked it,&#8221; Vance said, referencing the outcry from liberals in the United States and abroad who had accused him of driving a wedge between the United States and its allies. &#8220;You guys liked it, not everybody liked it.&#8221;
What followed then was a standing ovation:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
JD Vance gets a standing ovation at CPAC for his epic Munich speech last week. <a href="https://t.co/T36nFp9P9s">pic.twitter.com/T36nFp9P9s</a>
&mdash; Libby Emmons (@libbyemmons) <a href="https://twitter.com/libbyemmons/status/1892601576633897287?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 20, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
As the audience members got to their feet, Vance smiled and thanked them, adding, &#8220;I&#8217;ll take a standing ovation for a speech I already gave. It&#8217;s like two for the price of one.&#8221;
&#8220;Here&#8217;s your speech, just say it again,&#8221; Schlapp joked.
Vance&#8217;s speech warned Europeans of a threat within their own borders — one posed by the very governments they represented.
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&#8220;If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you,&#8221; he told European leaders while citing examples of efforts to suppress the political expressions of their own people.
Referencing the European nations that had been on the winning side during the Cold War, Vance added, &#8220;Consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that canceled 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.&#8221;
&#8220;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 and unworthy of even being considered. Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There’s no room for firewalls,&#8221; he concluded.

61st Munich Security Conference

Vance Gets Standing Ovation For Speech He Gave Last Week: ‘Two For The Price Of One!’

Vance Gets Standing Ovation For Speech He Gave Last Week: 'Two For The Price Of One!'

CPAC

General

Munich

In just a few days, Germans will vote in one of the most important elections in their country&#8217;s history. For the first time since the Second World War, a true nationalist party — one the media dubs &#8220;far-Right,&#8221; which is a term that&#8217;s never been defined, and will never be defined — stands to win a significant number of seats in parliament.
This party, called &#8220;Alternative for Germany,&#8221; promises to end unrestricted migration into the country. They&#8217;ll stop destroying Germany&#8217;s nuclear plants to appease climate cultists, and focus instead on energy independence. They&#8217;ll reject the fiction that people can change their gender whenever they want to. Above all, they&#8217;ll affirm that there&#8217;s nothing shameful or embarrassing about being German.
This is all very basic stuff. In this country, largely because of the political rise of Donald Trump, &#8220;America First&#8221; has been a rallying cry for tens of millions of voters for more than a decade. But in Europe, this kind of thinking isn&#8217;t just taboo. It&#8217;s basically heresy. That&#8217;s why the &#8220;Alternative for Germany&#8221; party is currently being investigated by several German intelligence agencies.
It&#8217;s also why JD Vance just gave what may be the single most consequential speech by a U.S. politician in Europe since Reagan was in office. Just before Germans head to the polls, Vance delivered a message at the Munich Security Conference that the media could not censor. He was speaking to European elites in the room, but his message was actually directed at voters — and particularly, voters in Germany. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="001 Vance in Munich" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cwRR8k-rC_8?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
After this speech, it&#8217;s not an overstatement to say that European elites lost their collective minds.
One European official told the Economist that the speech was a &#8220;direct assault on European democracy.&#8221; Meanwhile a senior diplomat stated, &#8220;It&#8217;s very clear now. Europe is alone.&#8221; He added that Europe now regards the U.S. as an &#8220;adversary.&#8221;
Perhaps the best reaction came from a guy named &#8220;Christoph Heusgen,&#8221; who&#8217;s the chair of the Munich Security Conference. Apparently he&#8217;s retiring, so he delivered a speech about how America&#8217;s values don&#8217;t align with Europe&#8217;s anymore. Then, at the end of the speech, he did something that no grown man should ever do in public: He broke down crying. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="002 crying" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ixs0UwDEVjU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
In response to this footage, the Munich Security Conference put out a statement that — for my money — is the single most humiliating statement that a &#8220;security conference&#8221; can possibly put out. Keep in mind, this is supposedly a very serious conference about saving the world from Russian military aggression, keeping us out of nuclear war, making sure we&#8217;re not all speaking Chinese in five years, and so on. The Munich Security Conference is the real deal.
With that in mind, here&#8217;s the official statement from the Munich Security Conference, after that footage <a href="https://x.com/MunSecConf/status/1891393579144372627" target="_blank" rel="noopener">went viral</a> online: 
<blockquote>Our former Chair Christoph Heusgen did not shed a few tears out of &#8216;frustration&#8217;. It was his farewell speech as he was leaving the [Munich Security Conference] after this year&#8217;s conference. He was saying goodbye to the team at this very moment.</blockquote>
In other words, the Munich Security Conference is taking a break from keeping the world secure, in order to clarify that the footage you may have seen online was edited unfairly. They&#8217;re saying that their fearless leader wasn&#8217;t crying in public over anything JD Vance said. That would just be ridiculous. Instead, he was crying in public because he&#8217;s leaving his job.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1538-cbs-claims-that-free-speech-caused-the-holocaust-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
Of course, that explanation doesn&#8217;t change the fact that Christoph Heusgen is not a child under the age of 12. He is, in fact, a 69-year-old man. And by the way, he&#8217;s only held this particular job since 2022. So he&#8217;s breaking down in public because he&#8217;s leaving a job after a period of time that qualifies, at best, as a short stint. This is what broke him. He had to just walk off stage, head in his hands, because he&#8217;s really going to miss being the &#8220;chair of the Munich Security Conference&#8221; after three whole years.
At this point, they should probably just admit that JD Vance made him cry, honestly. That would actually be less embarrassing than whatever they came up with.
Not to rub it in, by the way, but this guy — Christoph Heusgen — is the same German diplomat who laughed at Donald Trump back at the United Nations in 2018, when he warned that Germany was dangerously dependent on Russian energy. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="003 laughing" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iJ4joU-O96M?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
We all know what happened next. When Russia invaded Ukraine and cut off a majority of Germany&#8217;s energy, the Germans had to re-open a bunch of coal plants and delay the shutdown of their nuclear plants. They also had to find natural gas elsewhere — including from the United States. So it&#8217;s fitting, I guess, that a few years later, this same guy isn&#8217;t laughing on camera anymore. Instead he&#8217;s crying, for one reason or another.
It&#8217;s obviously a flattering comparison for JD Vance. It&#8217;s almost like Europe&#8217;s leaders wanted to appear as weak as possible, in the wake of his speech — and right before this weekend&#8217;s elections in Germany.
But Europeans weren&#8217;t the only ones giving JD Vance a big assist this weekend. Over at CBS News, Margaret Brennan suggested that Vance was wrong to extol the virtues of free speech, because the Nazis used free speech, and that&#8217;s how you got the Holocaust. 
To be clear, yes, this is a real segment that actually aired on national television. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="004 CBS free speech" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WbKgv-6Z71I?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Keep in mind, the woman who asked this question moderated the VP debate, in which she cut off JD Vance&#8217;s microphone because he refuted one of her lies about immigration. Now here she is, claiming that the Nazis somehow &#8220;weaponized&#8221; speech to &#8220;conduct a genocide.&#8221;
On reflection, it&#8217;s actually impressive how little her question makes sense. First of all, it doesn&#8217;t actually mean anything to &#8220;weaponize free speech to conduct a genocide.&#8221; The words don&#8217;t come together in a way that makes any sense. It&#8217;s like saying the Nazis &#8220;weaponized air to conduct a genocide.&#8221; So therefore we need to ban air, I guess, since the Nazis used it.
But in this case, she&#8217;s just wrong on the basic facts. Before the Nazis rose to power, Weimar Germany had laws against so-called &#8220;hate speech,&#8221; including laws that prohibited hate speech against Jews. Prior to the rise of the Nazis, they shut down something like 100 newspapers in Prussia alone, over a two-year period. In 1925, Hitler was banned from speaking in some states because of his rhetoric. In the end, all of these speech restrictions actually emboldened Nazis. People assumed that, because these Nazis were being censored, maybe they were onto something. Censorship had the exact opposite of its intended effect. Then, of course, when the Nazis took over, they eliminated freedom of speech, as Rubio said. You couldn&#8217;t criticize Hitler in any way.
So there are about a million reasons why Margaret Brennan&#8217;s question is complete nonsense. I could go on and pick apart Brennan&#8217;s logic some more. But I really don&#8217;t need to, because her own network — CBS — did it for me. This weekend CBS just so happened to do a whole segment about how Germany cracks down on free speech. They conduct pre-dawn raids on people who post offensive content on the internet. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="005 Meme raid" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kpZXGbho09M?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Try to imagine how CBS would be covering raids like this if they came at the direction of Donald Trump. Let&#8217;s say Trump decides that he wants to ban hate speech, so he&#8217;ll conduct pre-dawn raids against anyone who posts hateful content about white people on the internet. How do you think &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; would react to something like that? Imagine Joy Reid or Jemele Hill getting carted away by armed law enforcement officers in the middle of the night because they made their one millionth post about how white people are evil. How do we think CBS might respond?
I can tell you this. Margaret Brennan wouldn&#8217;t come out and declare that Trump was doing his part to prevent another Holocaust. That&#8217;s because the corporate press isn&#8217;t actually concerned about the rise of an authoritarian government. They just want to make sure they&#8217;re the ones running it. 
If you doubt that, watch how the CBS anchorwoman reacts as German officials explain their draconian laws to her:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="006 Germany explains limits" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ek8H0r0dzVc?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
In case you missed it, here&#8217;s a screen-grab of the glee on her face:
<div id="attachment_878939" style="width: 690px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-878939" class="size-full wp-image-878939" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GkA06_HWIAA0UdT.jpeg" alt="Screenshot: 60 Minutes/CBS" width="680" height="344" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GkA06_HWIAA0UdT.jpeg 680w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GkA06_HWIAA0UdT-300x152.jpeg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" />Screenshot: 60 Minutes/CBS</div>
She&#8217;s being told that people in Germany are shocked to realize that their electronic devices are being seized. And she&#8217;s smiling throughout the whole thing. If you watch this entire segment, you won&#8217;t find any pushback whatsoever from CBS. They didn&#8217;t bring on a guest to explain how, actually, this is a horrible idea. Instead the whole segment came across like a promotion for state censorship. As it continued, it became more and more bizarre. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="008 reposting crime, internet insults worse" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t5vDG8OJLos?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
Conservatives are reacting with shock and horror to footage like this, which is understandable. We can&#8217;t forget, however, that something very similar has already happened here, in this country. And we would have gone full-Germany if Trump hadn&#8217;t won.
Everyone on the Left understands this. That&#8217;s why they&#8217;re lying to their viewers about what life is like in Germany at the moment. Here for example is MSNBC talking head Rick Wilson, explaining that Germany — despite the pre-dawn raids over memes — has a far better free-speech environment than America does. Watch:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Rick Wilson claims Germany has more free speech than us: &quot;HOW DARE JD LECTURE GERMANY!?&quot; <a href="https://t.co/UnjXkBWDOO">pic.twitter.com/UnjXkBWDOO</a>
&mdash; End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) <a href="https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1891495539981623526?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
He says that America is rated &#8220;55th in the world&#8221; for freedom of expression. I have no idea where he got that figure. My assumption was that some Left-wing group rated us 55th because some states ban drag queens from performing strip teases in front of children. But after looking into it, he could be referencing something called the &#8220;World Press Freedom index,&#8221; which basically surveys journalists and asks them if they feel threatened. Of course, all the journalists here say that Trump is going to put them in camps tomorrow, so we rate poorly as a result. Somehow this survey has Canada ranked 40 spots higher than the U.S., which is a pretty good indication that the survey is completely useless, given that Canada was arresting journalists who covered the trucker convoy just a couple of years ago.
Of course Rick Wilson is pointing to this useless survey because he knows that, by every actual metric, Americans have far more free-speech rights than Europeans. And people like Wilson want to change that. But there&#8217;s an even deeper issue here, which often gets lost as conservatives justifiably resist restrictions on speech: What makes the Left&#8217;s assault on free speech so insidious (whether in this country or in Germany or anywhere else in the Western world) is not just that they seek to ban open expression, but that they specifically want to ban the expression of true and morally right ideas. That&#8217;s the key element that will always separate Left-wing assaults on free speech from alleged Right-wing assaults on free speech.
Whenever someone claims that the Right is waging an assault on free speech, it always means that some conservatives are advocating for restrictions on pornography, or trying to ban adults from staging burlesque shows for children. On the other hand, when the Left bans free speech, they&#8217;re trying to stop us from saying that men can&#8217;t have babies, or they&#8217;re demanding that we show religious reverence to the pride flag. They&#8217;re arresting people for leaving tire marks on rainbow colored crosswalks, just as one example.
The alleged Right-wing restrictions on speech aren&#8217;t really restrictions on speech at all. But even if they were, it&#8217;s still a very different kind of speech. There is no equivalency here. This is the point that promoters of the &#8220;woke Right&#8221; narrative seem to consistently miss. The Atlantic, for example, just ran a big think piece entitled, &#8220;How the Woke Right Replaced the Woke Left.&#8221; They equate Republicans&#8217; dismissal of fake words like &#8220;Latinx&#8221; with Democrats&#8217; many, many attempts to dictate what words people can and cannot use, for example.
But the reality is that the &#8220;far-Left&#8221; and the &#8220;far-Right&#8221; are not, in fact, two sides of the same coin. They are not equally delusional and dangerous. One side denies and seeks to suppress the most basic and fundamental realities of human existence. One side manipulates language and denies statistical data in order to hide the truth. The other side does not. The people demanding that you use the word &#8220;Latinx&#8221; because they think Hispanic people can be non-binary superhumans or whatever are not, in fact, identical to the people who understand that the entire concept of &#8220;Latinx&#8221; is ridiculous and incoherent.
But the Left has to draw an equivalence because they have no other response. When JD Vance points out that so-called &#8220;asylum seekers&#8221; are constantly murdering innocent Americans and Europeans, they know it&#8217;s true. In fact, just hours before Vance spoke in Munich, a girl and her mother were mowed down by an Islamic terrorist in the city. Dozens were injured. Then, after Vance&#8217;s speech, a Syrian &#8220;asylum seeker&#8221; murdered a 14-year-old boy in Austria. He was grinning as the police arrived.
Again and again, reality intrudes on Left-wing narratives. That is the fundamental problem with their ideology. It&#8217;s why they&#8217;re so insistent on censorship. It&#8217;s why JD Vance&#8217;s speech has European elites in tears, whether they&#8217;ll admit it or not. And it&#8217;s why, in just a few days, Germans will send a message that in Europe — as in this country — tens of millions of regular people have had enough.

CBS Claims Free Speech Caused The Holocaust

Leftists

Matt Walsh

Opinion

Social Media Censorship

The Trump Administration is making some fairly serious moves, and one of those moves involves pushing Europe to stand on its own two feet — for the first time in nearly a century.
Since the end of World War II, the United States has bankrolled European security. That’s because Europe destroyed itself during World War II. The United States had to prop up Europe afterward so that it didn&#8217;t become a communist-ridden hellhole.
And then Europe essentially became a sick man reliant on the ministrations of the United States and our taxpayer dollars in order to uphold itself against the Soviet Union.
Then the Soviet Union fell. And rather than Europe actually getting its act together, Europe simply continued to live on largesse from the United States. We helped prop up their security arrangements; we helped prop up NATO.
Meanwhile, they themselves got more robust in their stupidity. They decided they could play with house money — meaning, they decided they could be as Left-wing as they wanted while also knowing the United States would provide an almost endless security guarantee for them.
So, they decided open immigration from radical Islamist countries would be a great idea. They decided to pass forms of blasphemy laws in their own country in order to facilitate their idiotic notion that a post-colonialist society ought to be invaded by many of the areas that had once been colonized. They believed they would put those policies in place without any negative side effects.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2140-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Over the weekend, Vice President JD Vance spoke at the Munich Security Conference, and the Europeans became enraged. In his speech, he addressed some problems in Europe involving, for example, China and Russia. But the biggest problem is that Europe has forgotten what Europe is about.
Europeans don&#8217;t like being told this. The Europeans like to believe they&#8217;re the sophisticates on the block. They like to believe they are more nuanced and knowledgeable than brash, annoying Americans.
But what Vance said was 100% true. He called out the fact that Europe decided to let terrorists into their own borders and to crack down on free speech, free market, and economics — all of their own choice. He further questioned why America should have to pay for it, precisely.
Vance <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/politics/frightening-bullshit-senate-democrat-hammers-jd-vance-saying-europes-biggest-threat-is-within-not-russia-or-china/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a>:
<blockquote>The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia. It’s not China. It’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/us-vice-president-jd-vance-attack-europe-migration-free-speech/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">values shared</a> with the United States.</blockquote>
This should be considered alongside the speech Vance gave three days prior at the Paris AI Action Summit. In it, he chided the European Union for being so risk-averse that they were basically cracking down on their own ability to innovate in the AI space.
Dominic Green, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, wrote in <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/jd-vances-message-at-munich-foreign-policy-europe-america-bc4a8b82" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Wall Street Journal</a>:
<blockquote>Combine the two speeches and you have the classic American one-two. Economic and individual freedom support each other. Innovation, competitiveness and risk-taking are the natural partners of liberty, free speech and democracy. Europe should be the natural partner of the U.S. and a key link in the emerging American-led alignment. But Europe is divorced from reality.</blockquote>
Green is correct. One of the seeming policies of the Trump administration is to force the Europeans to own their own policies or to dissociate from their own stupidity of the past. And that stupidity is very, very real.
For instance, if you say something insulting about Islam in Britain, you might go to jail for as long as some of the people engaged in trafficking of young white girls in Rotherham. CBS’ “60 Minutes” reported that German officials have openly acknowledged they will criminally prosecute people for insulting others in public. A German official <a href="https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1891328859372400705">added</a>, “The fine could be even higher if you insult someone in the internet. Because on the internet, it stays there.”
“60 Minutes” is pushing for this. How do we know? Because this is the overall view of the legacy media: Only things the legacy media like being said should actually be said.
Margaret Brennan of CBS’ News “Face the Nation” <a href="https://x.com/michaelbd/status/1891206009508536367" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interviewed</a> Secretary of State Marco Rubio. She chided Vance for going to Europe saying of Vance in Germany, “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, that the censorship was specifically about the Right.”
“I have to disagree with you,” Rubio fired back. “Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. 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 had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews. There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none.”
By the way, there was not a lot of free speech prior to Nazi Germany. The Weimar Republic had many laws on the books that restricted speech. In fact, Adolf Hitler ended up spending some time in jail, not because of his speech but because he tried to lead a revolt. And then afterward, he wasn&#8217;t allowed to speak publicly for several years. Joseph Goebbels, the publicist for Hitler, actually was forced not to speak publicly. There were numerous lawsuits against Goebbels.
In fact, hate speech laws in Weimar Germany did not prevent the rise of the Nazis. In many ways, they actually facilitated the rise of the Nazis because people thought the Nazis might have something to say but were being suppressed.
There is a normal human tendency to buck against censorship by suggesting the person has something to say.
This is in accordance with the Left-wing perspective that you can shut down opinions you don&#8217;t like to magically protect yourself from the impact of those opinions. 
JD Vance was saying in Europe, “Guys, you&#8217;ve given up the thing that made you Europe in the first place.”
All of this is part and parcel of a much broader attempt by the United States to force the Europeans to stand up on their own two feet. And that is most evident when it comes to Ukraine.
Ukraine is exceptionally close to the rest of Europe. Ukraine borders a number of European countries, including Hungary, Poland, and Romania, among others. Though Europeans have increased their defense spending, they have been hesitant to take further action. They want the United States to foot the bill.
Thus, the Trump administration has been saying to the Europeans, “Listen, we&#8217;re tired of footing the bill. This is on your continent. Why don&#8217;t you take a leading role here? And if you want to take a leading role in the negotiations, perhaps you should step up to the table and increase your defense spending. Perhaps you should make the kinds of moves that might lead people to take you seriously when you guarantee, for example, Ukrainian security. Why is it that the United States always gets dragged into your domestic squabbles?”
Precisely. The Trump administration is not saying the United States should leave Ukraine to the predations of Vladimir Putin. They are trying to cajole the Europeans to do what they&#8217;re supposed to do.
According to the Associated Press, top diplomats from Russia and the United States met Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to discuss improving ties and bringing the war in Ukraine to an end. No Ukrainian officials attended the meeting.
On the surface, the United States might appear to be leaving Ukraine out of the loop or, perhaps, making a deal to then cram down on Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine.
But this is also a way of forcing the Europeans to the table. If they say, “We want to hear what the United States is saying,” and they want to come to the table, the question becomes: “What is it that makes you valuable in this conversation?”
This is one way of getting the Europeans to step up and do what they are supposed to do.
All of this makes perfect sense, to say to the Europeans: “Listen, you want to sit down at the table? You don&#8217;t get a free ride anymore.” It doesn&#8217;t get to be like the U.N., where France has a seat on the Security Council without doing anything for collective security.
If you want to be part of this conversation, you should have some skin in the game.
We&#8217;re going to find out very quickly who&#8217;s willing to put their money where their mouth is.

Trump And Vance Wreck Europe

60 Minutes

Ben Shapiro

Donald Trump

NATO

Vice President JD Vance let former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan have it in a brief spat on X over The Associated Press being barred from the White House after refusing to update the style guide to reflect the newly renamed Gulf of America.
The conversation began with a piece from Axios White House reporter Marc Caputo, who argued, &#8220;President Trump’s decision to limit AP reporters&#8217; access is as much fight over the Gulf of America as it is a protest of what White House advisers say is years of liberal word choices that AP’s influential stylebook has spread across mainstream media.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
President Trump’s decision to limit AP reporters&#39; access is as much fight over the Gulf of America as it is a protest of what White House advisers say is years of liberal word choices that AP’s influential stylebook has spread across mainstream media<a href="https://t.co/H7hJrsY44r">https://t.co/H7hJrsY44r</a>
&mdash; Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarcACaputo/status/1891464554120454264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Hasan quickly hopped on the legacy media bandwagon, asserting that the Trump administration&#8217;s decision to bar The AP from the White House was a violation of the outlet&#8217;s right to free speech.
The ousted MSNBC host also attempted to tie in current events and take a swing at the vice president in the process.
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&#8220;Hey, @JDVance, I know you’re busy lecturing the Europeans on free speech, but have you seen this?&#8221; Hasan asked.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Yes dummy. I think there’s a difference between not giving a reporter a seat in the WH press briefing room and jailing people for dissenting views. The latter is a threat to free speech, the former is not. Hope that helps!
&mdash; JD Vance (@JDVance) <a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance/status/1891553587970380152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Yes dummy. I think there’s a difference between not giving a reporter a seat in the WH press briefing room and jailing people for dissenting views,&#8221; Vance replied. &#8220;The latter is a threat to free speech, the former is not. Hope that helps!&#8221;
During his recent speech in Munich, Vance warned European leaders about the dangers of suppressing free speech and censoring their own citizens — a move that prompted backlash from American media.
CBS News host Margaret Brennan responded to Vance&#8217;s remarks by claiming on Sunday&#8217;s &#8220;Face the Nation&#8221; broadcast that &#8220;free speech was weaponized&#8221; to cause the Holocaust. Just hours later, the network aired an episode of &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; that cast a positive light on German authorities&#8217; efforts to crack down on free speech, particularly online.
Vance responded to Brennan&#8217;s comments with <a href="https://x.com/JDVance/status/1891219511942029677" target="_blank" rel="noopener">disbelief</a>, and pushed back on the claims made during the &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; broadcast — namely that in Germany, it is now illegal to post insults or to repost lies.
&#8220;Insulting someone is not a crime, and criminalizing speech is going to put real strain on European-US relationships. This is Orwellian, and everyone in Europe and the US must reject this lunacy,&#8221; he said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Insulting someone is not a crime, and criminalizing speech is going to put real strain on European-US relationships. 
This is Orwellian, and everyone in Europe and the US must reject this lunacy. <a href="https://t.co/WZSifyDWMr">https://t.co/WZSifyDWMr</a>
&mdash; JD Vance (@JDVance) <a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance/status/1891467842106630244?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Vance Torches ‘Dummy’ Mehdi Hasan In Spat Over Free Speech And The Associated Press

Associated Press

Gulf of America

Media

Vice President JD Vance blasted a trio of German prosecutors who said during an interview with &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; that insults — both in person and online — are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/guest-on-60-minutes-claims-german-citizens-have-free-speech-but-there-are-limits" target="_blank" rel="noopener">illegal</a> in their country.
The &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bMzFDpfDwc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">60 Minutes</a>&#8221; segment that aired on Sunday reported on Germany&#8217;s enforcement of its &#8220;hate speech&#8221; law, which has been around since 2017, and showed police raiding German citizens&#8217; homes and confiscating electronics over social media posts. During the interview, all three German state prosecutors told host Sharyn Alfonsi that insulting someone in public and online is criminal. Those who break the law are usually punished with a stiff fine, but repeat offenders could be thrown in jail.
&#8220;The fine could be even higher if you insult someone in the internet,&#8221; said state prosecutor Dr. Matthäus Fink, adding, &#8220;Because in internet, it stays there. If we are talking face to face, you insult me, I insult you, okay. Finish. But if you&#8217;re in the internet, if I insult you or a politician &#8230;&#8221;
&#8220;It sticks around forever,&#8221; Alfonsi said to Fink&#8217;s agreement.
State prosecutor Svenja Meininghaus added that reposting a lie — which could include gossip or fake quotes — is also a criminal action in Germany &#8220;because the reader can&#8217;t distinguish whether you just invented this or just reposted it.&#8221;
Along with fining offenders of the hate speech law, judges sometimes confiscate their phones.
&#8220;How do they react when you take their phones from them?&#8221; Alfonsi asked.
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&#8220;They are shocked,&#8221; replied Frank-Michael Laue as the prosecutors laughed.
Vance, who spoke in Munich last week and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-people-have-a-voice-vance-warns-europe-about-censorship-the-threat-from-within" target="_blank" rel="noopener">warned</a> Europe against censorship, blasted the &#8220;Orwellian&#8221; German hate speech law on Monday.
&#8220;Insulting someone is not a crime, and criminalizing speech is going to put real strain on European-US relationships,&#8221; the vice president posted on X. &#8220;This is Orwellian, and everyone in Europe and the US must reject this lunacy.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Insulting someone is not a crime, and criminalizing speech is going to put real strain on European-US relationships. 
This is Orwellian, and everyone in Europe and the US must reject this lunacy. <a href="https://t.co/WZSifyDWMr">https://t.co/WZSifyDWMr</a>
&mdash; JD Vance (@JDVance) <a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance/status/1891467842106630244?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
During his Friday speech at the Munich Security Conference, Vance ripped European countries that have cracked down on free speech.
“I believe deeply that there is no security if you’re afraid of the voices, the opinions, and the conscience that guide your very own people,” Vance said. “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.”

German Prosecutors Tell ’60 Minutes’ That An Insult Is A Crime. JD Vance Blasts ‘Orwellian’ Law.

Censorship

Hate Speech

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