JD Vance & Elon Musk’s Support German Extremist Party AFD Alarms European Allies

JD Vance met with the leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AFD) party, Alice Weidel, after a security conference in Munich last week. A spokesperson for Weidel confirmed the meeting, saying the two discussed the Ukraine war, German domestic policy and freedom of speech.

In his first international trip as vice president, Vance declined a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Vance met with Weidel in private just weeks before a German election which the party has assured second place on a wave of growing anti-establishment sentiment.

“If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you,” said Vance at the conference. “You need democratic mandates to accomplish anything of value in the coming years.”

The Trump administration appears to widely support some of the continent’s most toxic parties in opposition to the sitting governments in the UK, Germany and other major allies. Elon Musk, who has been tasked by President Donald Trump to slash the federal workforce, has praised AfD, attending numerous rallies and events and claiming “only the AfD can save Germany.”

In Munich, Vance also accused the European leaders of “hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation.'” He called out leaders for shunning far-right parties in their countries, effectively keeping them from gaining too much power behind a political firewall. Brandmauer, or “firewall against the right,” prevents ultra-nationalist parties like AfD from joining ruling coalitions in Germany.

“To many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion, or, God forbid, vote a different way — or even worse, win an election,” Vance said.

Vance’s remarks were met with bewildered silence from attendees. He continued to scold European leaders for stifling free speech and not engaging with “alternative viewpoints.”

“Listening to that speech, they try to pick a fight with us and we don’t want to pick a fight with our friends,” said Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief.

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Article by Angie Schlager