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Tearful chair of Munich Security Conference expresses ‘fear’ after blistering Vance speech in farewell address

The outgoing chairman of the Munich Security Conference delivered an emotional farewell speech that ended in tears, after he expressed “fear” over Vice President JD Vance’s blistering speech to the annual conference on international security policy.

“This conference started as a trans-Atlantic conference,” German diplomat and chair of the conference Christoph Heusgen said Sunday. “After the speech of Vice President Vance on Friday, we have to fear that our common value base is not that common anymore. I’m very grateful to all those European politicians that spoke out and reaffirmed the values and principles that they are defending. No one did this better than President Zelenskyy, who has been fighting for these values – democracy, freedom, rule of law for the past three years.”

Heusgen’s speech marked the close to his leadership of the Munich Security Conference, as former Secretary-General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg takes the reins of the international security forum. Heusgen had served as leader of the forum since 2022.

Social media critics began posting snippets of Heusgen’s speech to X Sunday, claiming the German diplomat and longtime advisor to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel broke down in tears over his frustrations with Vance’s blistering speech to the international body. The conference clarified on X that the diplomat reportedly broke down due to his speech being his last as chairman of the forum.

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Christoph Heusgen’s speech marked the close of his leadership of the Munich Security Conference. (Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images )

“Our former Chair Christoph Heusgen did not shed a few tears out of ‘frustration.’ It was his farewell speech as he was leaving the MSC after this year’s conference. He was saying goodbye to the team at this very moment. The video snippet here is edited together,” the conference posted to X Monday morning.

The full video of Heusgen’s speech shows him breaking down into tears after warning that “our rules-based international order is under pressure.”

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“It is clear that our rules-based international order is under pressure,” he said. “It is my strong belief… that this multipolar world needs to be based on a single set of norms and principles, on the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This order is easy to disrupt, it’s easy to destroy, but it’s much harder to rebuild, so let us stick to these values. Let us not reinvent them, but focus on strengthening their consistent application.”

Vice President JD Vance, in his speech at the 61st Munich Security Conference Feb. 14, 2025, lambasted “Soviet”-style European censorship and joked about left-wing environmentalist Greta Thunberg. (Thomas Kienzle/AFP via Getty Images)

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President Donald Trump has frequently taken shots at the United Nations since his first administration, and said earlier in February that the U.N. was “not being well run” and needs to get its “act together.”

A spokesperson for the Munich Security Conference reiterated to Fox News Digital that Christoph Heusgen teared up solely because he was ending his three-year term leading the forum. (Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images)

“Let me conclude. And this becomes difficult,” Heusgen said, choking up, before leaving the podium on the stage and hugging various members of the audience.

A spokesperson for the conference reiterated to Fox News Digital Monday that Heusgen teared up solely due to the fact that he was ending his three-year term leading the forum and that “many long-time participants and friends were in the Conference Hall to say goodbye” to the diplomat.

“I was truly touched by the warm farewell I received from the entire MSC team and so many friends after my last MSC as chairman,” Heusgen added in comment to Fox News Digital. “It was a very emotional moment on stage at the end of my term. A video is circulating on the internet that takes this scene of my departure out of context. Unfortunately, this once again shows how the mechanisms of disinformation work.”

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His speech to the assembly followed Vance’s on Friday, where the U.S. vice president lambasted “Soviet”-style European censorship, joked about left-wing environmentalist Greta Thunberg, and slammed ongoing immigration woes that have throttled European nations and the U.S. under the Biden administration.

“Trust me, I say this with all humor,” Vance said at one point of his speech. “If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.”

Vance also took issue with current immigration practices across the world, calling them “out-of-control migration” policies that include allowing unvetted migrants into foreign nations. Vance’s comments followed a suspect identified as an Afghan migrant ramming a car into pedestrians at a trade union demonstration in Munich Thursday, killing a mother and child and injuring at least 37 others.

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“But why did this happen in the first place?” Vance said in his speech of the Munich car attack. “It’s a terrible story, but it’s one we’ve heard way too many times in Europe, and unfortunately, too many times in the United States, as well. An asylum seeker, often a young man in his mid-20s, already known to police, rams a car into a crowd and shatters a community. How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction?”

Vice President JD Vance also took issue with current immigration practices across the world, calling them “out-of-control migration” policies. (Matthias Schrader/The Associated Press)

Other world leaders seemingly took issue with Vance’s speech during the forum, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz saying the day after Vance’s speech that Germany rejects “outsiders intervening in our democracy.”

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Stateside, conservatives have celebrated Vance’s speech as “almost Reaganesque,” “pro-American” and pro-free speech on social media and during Fox News interviews.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Munich Security Conference on Monday for additional comment regarding Heusgen’s speech and did not immediately receive a reply.

February 17, 2025
FCC chair brings receipts on Biden admin’s ‘expertise in incompetence’ in blistering message to Buttigieg

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr slammed former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for claiming Trump administration “incompetence” is putting Americans “at risk,” pointing to a multi-billion dollar project under the Biden administration that he said yielded no results.

“You worked for an Administration that got $42 billion to connect millions of Americans to the Internet,” Carr said in an X post on Saturday responding to Buttigieg. “1,163 days later, that Admin exited without connecting even 1 person & without turning even 1 shovel worth of dirt.”

“If we need expertise in incompetence, will reach out,” he added, accompanied by the peace sign emoji.

Carr was responding to a message Buttigieg posted on Friday that took issue with the Department of Government Efficiency, which has become a common target of Democrats as Elon Musk and the DOGE team work through federal government agencies in its quest of extinguishing government fraud and overspending.

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Federal Communication Commission chairman Brendan Carr has opened an investigation into radio station controlled by left-wing billionaire George Soros. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

“Incompetence in Washington puts every American at risk, no matter how you voted. No one should be happy that the DOGE team – the same folks who randomly published classified U.S. security information online today – wants access to your bank account & Social Security numbers,” Buttigieg posted to X on Friday, referring to accusations DOGE posted classified information to its website, which the White House has refuted.

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The Biden administration in 2021 approved a $42.5 billion provision in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was directed to a program intended to deliver internet to underserved and rural areas of the nation. Four years later, however, the program has not connected users to the internet, the Washington Policy Center found in a report last year.

Former President Biden, FCC chair Brendan Carr, and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. (Getty Images)

States were required to submit plans to the federal government by 2023 related to the investment and deployment of the internet services. Former President Joe Biden, upon the states submitting their plans, celebrated the internet initiative as similar to former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1936 Rural Electrification Act, which brought electricity to homes nationwide.

“What we’re doing is, as I said, not unlike what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did when he brought electricity to nearly every American home and farm in our nation. Today, Kamala and I are making an equally historic investment to connect everyone in America — everyone in America to high-speed Internet by — and affordable high-speed Internet — by 2030,” Biden said at the White House in June of 2023.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg speaks during a press conference on June 28, 2021, in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Carr has frequently taken issue with the $42.5 billion program, including citing it in X posts before President Donald Trump’s election win in November, and the president subsequently appointing the Republican FCC commissioner as chair of the government agency.

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“In 2021, the Biden Administration got $42.45 billion from Congress to deploy high-speed Internet to millions of Americans,” wrote on X back in June “Years later, it has not connected even 1 person with those funds. In fact, it now says that no construction projects will even start until 2025 at earliest.”

President Joe Biden speaks about his administration on Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Carr explained to Fox Business back in June that while the funds were allocated to states to deliver internet services through the program, the Biden administration was at fault for the lack of progress.

“There’s no question that the 2021 law put some process in place, but the Biden administration decided to layer on top of that a Byzantine additional set of hoops that states have to go through before the administration will approve them to actually get these funds and start completing the builds,” Carr told FOX Business in an interview in June.

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He added that while some high-speed internet projects had connected people during the Biden administration, none were funded through the $42.5 billion allocation from the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program.

Fox News Digital’s Breck Dumas contributed to this report.

February 17, 2025
‘Wokest hospital in America?’: Top hospital hit with blistering ad exposing ‘political agenda’

FIRST ON FOX: Consumers’ Research, a leading non-profit dedicated to consumer information, is launching a campaign targeting the Cleveland Clinic over what it says is a history of the organization prioritizing woke politics over patients.

The campaign, dubbed “Cleveland Clinic Exposed”, asks the public whether the clinic is “the wokest hospital in America” and will involve an ad titled “Exposed,” which will run in Ohio during the Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Toronto Raptors game on Wednesday.

“Is Cleveland Clinic the wokest hospital in America?” the 30-second ad asks. “They prioritize care based on skin color. Perform child sex changes. Push transgender propaganda on vulnerable kids. Insert DEI into everything they do.”

“And spend millions on climate activism. The CEO admits it: Healthcare is only a part of their mission. Cleveland Clinic. Focused on a political agenda. Not what’s best for patients.”

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The Cleveland Clinic was hit with an ad this week alleging that the hospital is promoting a “woke” agenda. (Fox News Digital)

The ad campaign will also be featured on ClevelandClinicExposed.com, and mobile billboards will be seen outside the Ohio state capitol building, Cleveland Clinic main campus and the Florida state capitol building.

Additionally, a targeted digital campaign and a “woke alert” is being sent out calling on the clinic to “stop injecting politics into patient care.”

“Attention Floridians,” one of the alerts states. “Cleveland Clinic opened a sex change clinic in your backyard.”

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A senior Black man is sitting in his doctor’s office and listening as the doctor shows him something on a digital tablet. (iStock)

The ad, in part, references a letter from Cleveland Clinic’s CEO suggesting that providing healthcare services is not the sole focus of the organization.

“Providing high-quality healthcare is only a part of our mission,” Cleveland Clinic CEO Tom Mihaljevic wrote in a post on the hospital’s website.

“We have an obligation to uplift the many communities we call home. We must improve our neighbors’ wellbeing, quality of life and opportunities to succeed. We must operate in sustainable ways that are good for our planet. We must embrace diversity, champion human rights and lead with humility and inclusiveness.”

Cleveland Clinic has faced accusations of promoting a “woke” agenda in the past, including a complaint filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty alleging, “race-based discrimination and segregation of patients.”

Consumers’ Research, a leading non-profit dedicated to consumer information, is targeting the Cleveland Clinic with a new ad. (Fox News Digital)

The Cleveland Clinic’s website also contains several posts promoting climate initiatives, including a plan for “greening” its operating rooms.

In 2022, the Cleveland Clinic hired Jacqui Robertson as chief of diversity and inclusion, and announced in a post that has since been deleted that she will “lead efforts that will further diversity and inclusion across the health system.”

Robertson stated in a 2023 interview, “I don’t believe that diversity and inclusion should ever be a standalone strategy. It has to be embedded in everything that we do. And so that’s our processes, that’s our metrics.”

In a June 2023 post that also appears to have been deleted from the Cleveland Clinic website, the clinic explained “How To Support a Child Who’s Questioning Their Gender Identity.”

Also in June 2023, the clinic put out a press release labeling racism as a “public health crisis.”

“Cleveland Clinic is committed to addressing structural racism and bias in our community,” the organization said in a December 2020 press release announcing a plan to “join a coalition of 37 of the largest U.S. employers, to train, hire and promote one million Black Americans into family-sustaining jobs with opportunities for advancement.”

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City skyline and the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland. (John Greim/Loop Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Despite past press releases and statements on the Cleveland Clinic’s website highlighting its agenda, a Cleveland Clinic spokesperson pushed back against the campaign.

“The advertisement contains false statements, and we are concerned there are serious inaccuracies in their claims. Our services are available for everyone, and we do not discriminate based on race, gender or any other category,” the spokesperson said.

“By its own shocking words and deeds, Cleveland Clinic has quite possibly become the wokest hospital in America,” Will Hild, Consumers’ Research executive director, told Fox News Digital in a statement. “The clinic’s leadership alarmingly proclaims that DEI ‘has to be embedded in everything that we do.’ Such a sentiment plagues the entire hospital system and should frighten every patient in need of its services.”

“From unethical race-based care to transgender mutilation surgeries on kids to bowing at the altar of climate extremism, Cleveland Clinic seems hell-bent on satisfying every woke fixation while cost-reduction for patients is a distant afterthought. It is wrong when any company prioritizes woke objectives over its consumers, but it is especially disturbing when the perpetrator is a medical facility and consumers are patients. Cleveland Clinic must reverse course, shun woke radicalism, stop spending resources in the wrong places, and make affordable quality care its only focus.”

Andrew Mark Miller is a reporter at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to [email protected].

February 12, 2025