JD Vance Says U.S. Support For NATO Should Be Linked to EU Not Regulating Elon Musk’s Social Media Platform
GOP vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) told YouTube host Shawn Ryan recently that U.S. support for NATO should come “with certain strings attached” – including ensuring that Europe doesn’t try and regulate Elon Musk.
“The leader, I forget exactly which official it was within the European Union, but sent Elon this threatening letter that basically said, ‘We’re going to arrest you if you platform Donald Trump,’ who, by the way, is the likely next president of the United States,” Vance said while on the show late last week. He added:
So what America should be saying is, if NATO wants us to continue supporting them and NATO wants us to continue to be a good participant in this military alliance, why don’t you respect American values and respect free speech? Excuse me. It’s insane that we would support a military alliance if that military alliance is going to be pro-free speech. I think we can do both. But we’ve got to say American power comes with certain strings attached. One of those is respect free speech, especially in our European allies.
Like, look, I’m not going to go to some backwoods country and tell them how to live their lives. But European countries should theoretically share American values, especially about some very basic things like free speech.
In July, Thierry Breton, the EU’s commissioner for internal market, tweeted that X’s blue-check verification system “deceives users.” He added, “Now X has the right of defence —but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines & require significant changes.” Notably, at no point did an EU official threaten to arrest Musk.
Musk replied at the time, saying, “We look forward to a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth.” In a separate more conspiratorial-sounding post, the Tesla billionaire added, “The European Commission offered 𝕏 an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us. The other platforms accepted that deal. 𝕏 did not.”
If the EU were to pursue action against X, it would be the first use of the new Digital Services Act, which European media calls a “sweeping set of regulations that requires platforms to take more responsibility for protecting their European users and cleaning up harmful or illegal content and products on their sites, under threat of hefty fines.”
Vance has long received criticism for taking what critics claim is a pro-Putin posture regarding the war in Ukraine and NATO, which Vladimir Putin views as a primary geopolitical foe.
Watch the clip above.
