Rubio defends Vance's Munich speech to CBS anchor who claimed 'free speech' caused Holocaust

Secretary of State Marco Rubio took on CBS anchor, Margaret Brennan on Sunday to defend Vice President JD Vance's speech in Germany, during the Munich Security Conference, in which he criticized some European countries' penchant for embracing censorship and avoiding working with political parties outside the establishment.

On "Face the Nation," Brennan claimed that Vice President Vance only succeeded in upsetting his allies with his defiant speech, a claim that was dismissed by the secretary of state.

"What did all of this accomplish, other than irritating our allies?" asked Brennan.

"Why would our allies or anybody be irritated by free speech and by someone giving their opinion? We are, after all, democracies," Rubio responded. "The 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."

The host then rebuked Vice President Vance for meeting with leaders of Germany's right-wing, euroskeptic AfD party and claimed that free speech was once used by the Nazi regime, eventually generating the Holocaust, a revision of history that was refuted by Rubio, who just happens to be visiting Israel.

"Well, he was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide," Brennan said. "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."

"Well, I have to disagree with you," Rubio replied. "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 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 the sole and only party that governed that country. So that's not an accurate reflection of history," said the secretary of state, who won several accolades for his speech.

Vance himself reacted to the exchange between Rubio and Brennan by asking: "Does the media really think the holocaust was caused by free speech?"