The “special relationship” between the US and the UK got awkward Thursday, when Vice President JD Vance confronted British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in the Oval Office over the longtime American ally’s weakening of freedom of speech.
Earlier this month, at the Munich Security Conference, Vance had riled European opinion by decrying what he called “the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values—values shared with the United States of America.”
Vance stood by his comments Thursday when pressed by a reporter, saying: “I said what I said, which is that we do have, of course, a special relationship with our friends in the UK and also with some of our European allies.
“But we also know that there have been infringements on free speech that actually affect not just the British, of course, what the British do in their own country is up to them,” the 40-year-old added, “but also affect American technology companies and, by extension, American citizens. So that is something that we’ll talk about today at lunch.”