Wegmann: Rubio Told Europeans That The Years Of Managed Decline Are Over, To Define Themselves To Defend Themselves
RCP White House correspondent Phil Wegmann joined Monday’s “Special Report” panel to analyze Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference..
BRET BAIER, HOST: Yeah. Phil, the fallout from the Munich conference, that speech by Marco Rubio, is really quite something, if you watch the whole thing. It’s essentially the same message as I talked with Britt, as Vice President Vance delivered a year ago, just in a different way. PHILIP WEGMANAN, REAL CLEAR POLITICS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio are the good cop, bad cop of this administration. A year ago, the Vice President took the Europeans by the ear, and then this week you had the Secretary of State, who sort of translated that tough love message. Certainly, you know, he was very aggressive with them, but he explained that the reason why this administration wants Europe to step up more for its defense is because it’s a hand of friendship. This is an alliance that they care about. The through-line throughout all of that, though, was Rubio was saying that the decades of decadence, the years of managed decline, are over. And essentially, he was telling the West that they needed to define themselves to be prepared to defend themselves.
