Munich conference uneasy as U.S. policy feels volatile (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I've been coming for years to the Munich Security Conference, but this time there's an unexpected problem, and that's one of its key pillars, America.

[00:00:08] Speaker 2: The world is changing very fast right in front of us. The old world is gone, frankly, the world I grew up in. And we live in a new era in geopolitics, and it's going to require all of us to sort of re-examine what that looks like and what our role is going to be.

[00:00:22] Speaker 1: That is U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he's supposed to be the calm one, kind of trying to restore relations, but they have had a horrific past month with the Greenland debacle, with the U.S. President threatening to use force against Danish territory, with turmoil over Ukraine and peace negotiations there, and also after last year when Vice President J.G. Vance launched a broadside against what he falsely said was a lack of free speech and democracy in America's key European allies. So many deeply concerned here that we could see more turmoil, many traumatized, many hoping to get through this without some kind of disaster. And also, while many I think are clear, the White House wants Europe to spend more on defence, the rest of the policy is pretty opaque. It seems to change often, day by day, according to President Trump's whims, and that is the minor thing, the significant unease you can feel here.