Vice President JD Vance continued his defense of free speech on Monday, criticizing German prosecutors explaining their efforts to crack down on free speech in Germany.
CBS featured a sympathetic look at the German government efforts to crack down on ‘hate speech’ in an episode of 60 Minutes on Sunday.
German prosecutors explained to the reporter how surprised German citizens are when they are arrested for posting offensive content online, but said it was necessary.
But Vance disagreed.
‘Insulting someone is not a crime, and criminalizing speech is going to put real strain on European-US relationships,’ the vice president said.
The German prosecutors explained that anyone sharing or resharing offensive or hateful content would be prosecuted and fined, seizing their phones, and even jailed.
In recent years, Germany has ramped up their policing on online speech.
But Vance is not a fan.
United States Vice-President JD Vance addresses the audience during the Munich Security Conference
‘This is Orwellian, and everyone in Europe and the US must reject this lunacy,’ he replied.
The CBS interview featured comments from Josephine Ballon, the CEO of HateAid, who was supporter of the enhanced online speech enforcement.
‘Free speech needs boundaries and in the case of Germany these boundaries are part of our constitution,’ she said. ‘Without boundaries, a very small group of people can rely on endless freedom to say anything that they want, while everyone else is scared and intimidated.’
Vance’s comment drew support from Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, who shared it on X.
‘If this continues Europe is headed for a second Dark Age and the contrast with America’s Golden Age will be made all the more stark,’ she added. ‘Which way western man?’
Vance also reacted to a video clip of CBS’s Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan after she suggested in an interview with Secretary of State Marco Rubio that lax free speech laws in Germany gave rise to the Holocaust.
Brennan told Rubio that while Vance was in Germany speaking about the importance of free speech, ‘he was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide,’ referring to the horrors of Nazi Germany.
Margaret Brennan interviews Secretary of State Marco Rubio on CBS Face the Nation
US Vice President JD Vance (C), his wife Usha Vance (L) and Abba Naor, a survivor of the Dachau concentration camp during a tour of the Dachau Concentration Camp memorial site in Germany
‘This is a crazy exchange,’ Vance noted on X. ‘Does the media really think the Holocaust was caused by free speech?’
Vance’s position on the issue echoed his speech at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, in which he lectured European leaders for their attempts to censor people online.
‘Free speech, I fear, is in retreat,’ he said, highlighting some of the more egregious examples of the European governments arresting citizens for posting content on the internet.
He vowed to reverse online censorship, which he admitted also took place under former President Joe Biden.
‘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,’ he said.
