Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) criticized Vice President Vance for the rhetoric he used during his address to European leaders last week during the Munich Security Conference.
“He was talking about the enemy within. This is some of the same language that Hitler used to justify the Holocaust,” Moulton said Monday during an appearance on MSNBC.
During Vance’s first international trip while in office, he also made it a point to stop by the Dachau concentration camp a day before the speech. The site was the first of its kind spearheaded by the Nazi party in Germany to torture political prisoners.
His lecture to his European counterparts was largely focused on condemning the rampant migration of undocumented immigrants and the silencing of those with opposing views.
“No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants,” Vance said during his speech.
“More and more all over Europe, they’re voting for political leaders who promise to put an end to out of control migration,” he continued. “I happen to agree with a lot of these concerns. You don’t have to agree with me, I just think that people care.”
Moulton described the speech as “out of touch” and said it was “selling out the Ukrainians.”
“I think many of us Americans just felt totally embarrassed as VP Vance delivered really not a speech but a condescending lecture about the fundamental tenets of democracy to our European allies, and what was most remarkable is just how hypocritical this speech was,” the Massachusetts Democrat said Monday.
He also condemned Vance for meeting with far-right leaders of the country’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, claiming he went to “the old Nazi Party headquarters in Munich to meet with the leader of the modern-day Neo-Nazi party in Germany.”
Despite pushback to his comments, President Trump over the weekend defended Vance.
“I thought he made a very good speech, actually, a very brilliant speech,” Trump told reporters at the White House last week, adding “Europe has to be careful.”
