We cannot let this go, folks. When someone has a warped historical take like this, which highlights how the liberal media and left-wingers, writ large, have zero grasp of history, someone needs to be bullied into submission, especially when it comes to the origins of the Nazi Holocaust. CBS News’ Margaret Brennan was the one who pitched this "bonkers" theory about how one of the most infamous crimes in history was committed, and it didn’t involve blaming the Nazis.
Vice President JD Vance shocked Europe’s soy boy political class to its bones during his speech at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, noting that no one should expect more military assistance to defend democratic principles when they’re leading the charge against those ideals. It was a direct shot at the continent’s codifying of the censorship industrial complex regarding free speech. The smug political class here was left aghast, and it was glorious. Vance’s meeting with the Alternative for Germany Party would always be treated like the Wannsee Conference, except it wasn’t. And while we were expecting the media to attack Vance and the Trump White House for this meeting, we didn’t expect them to whiff this badly.
That’s the only shocking aspect of this story: how CBS and the rest of the liberal media are treating this appalling take on the Nazi Holocaust. Brennan dropped this alternative historical take interviewing Secretary of State Marco Rubio, where she said that too much freedom of speech was to blame for the Holocaust. You almost have to do a double-take. It almost was something a long time coming, as the liberal media equated the little January 6 riot as worse than Pearl Harbor, the American Civil War, and the 9/11 attacks—all of which are wrong. Even liberal reporters were left stunned by this glaring historical illiteracy. Here’s the transcript (emphasis mine):
Utterly bizarre assertion from Margaret Brennan. She claims the Nazi Holocaust occurred because "free speech was weaponized" in Germany, thus making Vance's comments all the more worrisome. Recasting the Holocaust as a consequence of excessive free speech is just totally bonkers pic.twitter.com/2vefGlzT6s
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 16, 2025
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about what happened in Munich, Germany, at the Security Conference. Vice President Vance gave a speech, and he told U.S. allies that the threat he worries about the most is not Russia, it is not China. He called it the "threat from within," and he lectured about what he described as censorship, mainly focusing, though, on including more views from the right. He also met with the leader of a far-right party known as the AfD, which, as you know, is under investigation and monitoring by German intelligence because of extremism. What did all of this accomplish, other than irritating our allies?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Why would our allies or anybody be irritated by free speech and by someone giving their opinion? We are, after all, democracies. The Munich- Munich Security Conference is largely a conference of democracies in which one of the things that we cherish and value is the ability to speak freely and provide your opinions. And so, I think if anyone's angry about his words, they don't have to agree with him, but to be angry about it, I think actually makes his point. I thought it was actually a pretty historic speech, whether you agree with him or not. I think the valid points he's making to Europe is, we are concerned that the true values that we share, the values that bind us together with Europe, are things like free speech and democracy and our shared history in winning two world wars and defeating Soviet communism and the like. These are the values that we shared in common, and in that cold war we fought against things like censorship and oppression and so forth, and when you see backsliding, and you raise that, that's a very valid concern. We can't tell them how to run their countries. We are- he simply expressed in a speech his view of it, which a lot of people, frankly, share. And I thought he said a lot of things in that speech that needed to be said. And honestly, I don't know why anybody would be upset about it. People are- you know, you don't have to agree on someone's speech. I happen to agree with a lot of what he said, but you don't have to agree with someone's speech to- to at least appreciate the fact they have a right to say it and that you should listen to it and see whether those criticisms are valid. I assure you, the United States has come under withering criticism on many occasions from many leaders in Europe, and we don't go around throwing temper tantrums about it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, 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--
SECRETARY RUBIO: -- Well I have to disagree with you. No- I have- I have to disagree with you. 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- they had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews. There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none. There was also no opposition in Nazi Germany, they were a sole and only party that governed that country. So that's not an accurate reflection of history. I also think it's wrong- again, I go back to the point of his speech. The point of his speech was basically that there is an erosion in free speech and intolerance or opposing points of view within Europe, and that's of concern because that is eroding. That's not an erosion of your military capabilities, that's not an erosion of your economic standing, that's an erosion of the actual values that bind us together in this transatlantic union that everybody talks about, and I think allies and friends and partners that have worked together now for 80 years, should be able to speak frankly to one another in open forums without being offended, insulted, or upset. And I spoke to Foreign Ministers from multiple countries throughout Europe. Many of them probably didn't like the speech or didn't agree with it, but they were continuing to engage with us on all sorts of issues that unite us. So again, at the end of the day, I think that, you know, people give all- that is a forum in which you're supposed to be inviting people to give speeches, not basically a chorus where everyone is saying the exact same thing. That's not always going to be the case when it's a collection of democracies where leaders have the right and the privilege to speak their minds in forums such as these.
So @JDVance goes to Germany and says free speech is good.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) February 17, 2025
CBS News responds first by blaming the Holocaust on free speech and then positively promoting Germany's laws that fine and imprison people for mean tweets.
Who exactly is the authoritarian in this?
Again, did these people think that Nazi Germany had free speech? Joesph Goebbels' literal title was Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda—state media isn’t freedom of the press, Ms. Brennan. Anyone with an IQ above 10 knows this—any basic history course would also know that freedom of speech was non-existent under the Third Reich. Is this the Twilight Zone?
And the fact that liberal media folks cannot differentiate between a free press and state propaganda tells us all we need to know about their ulterior motives. Many of these outlets had a sugar daddy in USAID, which shoveled millions to Politico, the Associated Press, The New York Times, Reuters, and others. Also, the Internews Network is likely to reveal an even more egregious system of state media ecosystem peddling.
Still, that "damned free speech killed all the Jews" take is still laughable but also sad beyond words.
<Norm voice> “so this CBS news lady tells me the worst part about the holocaust was the free speech.
— Matt Beebe (@TheMattBeebe) February 16, 2025
I disagree. I thought it was all the holocausting” pic.twitter.com/xaiWsdjVOZ
Last Note: Rubio showed class in not eviscerating Brennan, though he should have with extreme prejudice.
