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."
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.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tearful-chair-munich-security-conference-expresses-fear-after-blistering-vance-speech-farewell-address