JD Vance to skip Munich summit after fiery 2025 clash with European leaders

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Vice President JD Vance eviscerates Europe's return to 'Soviet-era' censorship

Vice President JD Vance tore into Europe's censorship policies in a speech at the Munich Security Conference. 

Vice President JD Vance will not attend the Munich Security Conference in 2026, Fox News Digital has learned. 

The move comes after Vance attended the conference in 2025 and issued some harsh words for European leaders — prompting some backlash from allies on the other side of the pond. 

A source familiar with Vance’s plans confirmed to Fox News Digital that Vance would not participate in the conference in 2026, but no reason was provided for his absence. The Munich Security Conference confirmed to Fox News Digital that Vance was invited again. 

Bloomberg first reported that Vance would not attend the conference. The 2026 conference will be held in February in Munich. 

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Vance's absence comes as he's publicly been more focused on domestic issues like fraud cases in Minnesota recently, while President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio appear to be spearheading the administration's foreign policy agenda. 

Vice President JD Vance will not attend the Munich Security Conference in 2026, Fox News Digital has learned. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo)

Meanwhile, Vance in 2025 cautioned that Russia and China don't pose as great a threat to European nations as the "threat from within," in regard to issues like censorship and illegal immigration. Likewise, Vance claimed that European voters didn’t endorse opening the "floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants." 

"To many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election," Vance said at the 2025 conference, which was held in February. 

Vice President JD Vance speaks during a discussion at the Munich Leaders meeting hosted by the Munich Security Conference at the Willard Hotel in Washington, May 7, 2025. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

European leaders challenged the remarks, and German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said shortly after Vance delivered the statement that he perceived the statements as a comparison to "conditions in parts of Europe with those in authoritarian regimes."

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"That is unacceptable, and it is not the Europe and not the democracy in which I live and am currently campaigning," Pistorius said. 

Vice President JD Vance in 2025 cautioned that Russia and China don't pose as great a threat to European nations as the "threat from within," in regard to issues like censorship and illegal immigration. (Leah Millis/Reuters)

Meanwhile, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre claimed that Vance was off base on his comments about immigration in Europe.

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"He speaks as though we are not focused on immigration in Europe," Gahr Støre said. "I mean, this is the big theme in every country, that we want to have control of our borders."

Fox News Digital reached out to conference officials for comment on Vance's absence and has not yet received a reply. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.