Vice President J.D. Vance has warned that American taxpayers and military servicemen may not continue to underwrite Europe’s defense if European governments continue pushing censorship. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday, he said, “Think about this: Germany’s entire defense is subsidized by the American taxpayer. There are thousands upon thousands of American troops in Germany today. 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’re not.”
Referring to his recent speech at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, the Vice President explained that “the point that I tried to make to our European friends… is that [our] friendship is based on shared values. You do not have shared values if you’re jailing people for saying we should close down our border; you don’t have shared values if you cancel elections because you don’t like the result—and that happened in Romania—[and] you do not have shared values if you’re so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up.”
