‘The west is winning’ didn’t win applause in Munich and US House speaker suggests problem was ‘source’ not substance.
It was a line that couldn't possibly miss, a surefire way to draw thunderous applause and bring a crowd full of true believers in the Western world order to its feet.
"The West is winning," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared to a packed hall at the Munich Secretary Conference. "We are collectively winning. We’re doing it together."
And yet it totally bombed. There was silence, not cheers. Video of the event shows people in the audience sitting, unmoved. Several people appeared to be on their phones, many had their hands in their laps. One man had two fingers pensively touching his chin. Two people seemed to be heading for the exit.
That session at the annual conference, which featured Pompeo's speech and an address immediately after by U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, perhaps most crystallized the yawning gulf that has opened up between the U.S. and its traditional European allies. And the crowd may simply not have agreed with Pompeo's assertion that the West is still ahead.
But in a brief interview on Monday at NATO headquarters in Brussels, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who attended the Munich conference, said it may be a rare case where blaming the messenger is actually appropriate.
"What the attitude in the room was toward Secretary Pompeo is not something I can evaluate for you" — U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
"The fact is that we're working together for the freedom of mankind and that's what unifies us," Pelosi said when asked why such an appealing "winning" message didn't win any fans.
Pelosi, the top-ranking Democrat in the U.S., has come to embody her party's widespread dismay over President Donald Trump, channeling a mixture of disdain, disgust, derision and defiance into a series of meme-generating moments, especially her "clap-back" at Trump's 2019 State of the Union speech, and her even more demonstrative ripping up of the text of his speech this year.
She has also managed to get under Trump's skin like a master sushi-chef descaling a fish, drawing his ire, for example, by saying how much she prays for him. "I pray hard for him because he’s so off the track of our Constitution, our values, our country," she said recently.
Pelosi, the first woman ever to become House speaker, has also served more than 30 years in Congress, and knows a thing or two about how to give a political speech and win over a room. In addition to countless remarks during debates on the House floor, she has long been one of her party's most successful fundraisers and aggressive campaigners.
Indeed, her phrase about working "for the freedom of mankind" is lifted from one of her all-time favorite speeches, John F. Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address. "Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country," Kennedy said, adding, "My fellow citizens of the world: Ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."
As for the flat response to Pompeo in Munich, Pelosi initially moved to deflect the question. "What the attitude in the room was toward Secretary Pompeo is not something I can evaluate for you," she told POLITICO after a press conference with her delegation during their visit to NATO headquarters.
Then, with a little chuckle she added: "Maybe they were just considering the source. I don't know."
