Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the stage Saturday at the Munich Security Conference (MSC), and you could almost sense the audience – made up largely of European Union (EU) leaders, global elites, and other stakeholders – hold its collective breath as it awaited another tongue-lashing from the United States for abandoning the policies on which Western society once rested.
It’s unlikely any of them had forgotten Vice President JD Vance going scorched earth on them last year for their softening stances on free speech. Here’s a taste of Vance at MSC 2025: “The threat that I worry most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, 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.”
And while Rubio struck a somewhat softer tone at this year’s conference, he was no less direct in his message for the rest of the Western world: get your act together on mass migration. “Mass migration is not and was not some fringe concern of little consequence,” he told the audience. “It was and continues to be a crisis which is transforming and destabilizing societies all across the West.”