My first reaction to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech, delivered on Valentine’s Day, at the Munich Security Conference, was, “Last year, President Donald Trump sent the bad cop, Vice President JD Vance. This year, he sent the good cop, Rubio. Progress.” In February 2025, the audience at Munich took Vance’s comments as insults. In February 2026, the audience, as evidenced by its standing ovation, took Rubio’s as compliments.

Yet, as even journalists writing on deadline quickly discerned, Rubio’s words were no less critical than Vance’s of what have been European elites’ cherished policies.

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“Mass migration,” Rubio said, is “a crisis which is transforming and destabilizing societies all across the West.” He decried a “climate cult” and “energy policies” that “impoverished our people.” He condemned policies that “outsourced our sovereignty to international institutions” and invested in massive welfare states.”

Red meat substance, suitable for delivery at any of the three Trump Republican National Conventions — more than have nominated any one person, the president might remind you, except for President Richard Nixon. But leavened, as the above quotations suggest, with frequent employment of the........

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