Column |
On Politics
Munich
Looks to the Future
The
annual security conference turned its focus not just to present dangers, but
what’s to come.
By
Jonathan Martin
02/15/2026
02:51 PM EST
Jonathan
Martin is POLITICO’s senior political columnist and politics bureau chief. He’s
covered elections in every corner of America and co-authored a best-selling
book about Donald Trump and Joe Biden. His reported column chronicles the
inside conversations and major trends shaping U.S. politics.
MUNICH —
The annual security conference here — a midwinter convening of elected leaders,
defense officials and the journalists who cover them — is typically consumed by
the events of the present or shadowed by those of the past.
This
year, however, Munich was suffused with what’s to come.
At a
moment when American politics is gripped by the daily eruptions of President
Donald Trump, he’s never felt more like a lame duck than he did in the
corridors of the Hotel Bayerischer Hof.
There
were so many potential Democratic presidential hopefuls here that it could have
been the Sheraton Nashua rather than an elegant Bavarian lodge. In their public
comments and private conversations, some of which were de facto bilateral
meetings, Democrats ranging from California Gov. Gavin Newsom to New York Rep.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez assured their European counterparts that Trump is
temporary and the transatlantic relationship isn’t.
“It is
very important that we have this much Democratic representation this year and
to show that we as a party are committed to a different path,” Ocasio-Cortez
told me. “Regardless of any political speculation, it is important that people
are seeing a unity of that commitment to our allies and our partnerships.”
Newsom,
who unlike in his trip to Davos last month brought reassurance rather than
kneepads, told me that America’s longstanding relationships “are in dormancy,
they’re not dead.”
The
president’s principal representative here, Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
delivered a speech aimed at reassuring Europe and articulating Trumpism without
the rhetorical headbutt that was Vice President JD Vance’s address to last
year’s gathering. However, Rubio’s remarks were so compelling that they were
met with a standing ovation and only served to remind Republicans and other
observers across the Atlantic that he’s a far more talented political athlete
than Vance — fueling another round of it-has-to-be-Marco-in-’28-right?
The
European hosts, also, could not stop thinking about tomorrow. While grateful
for Rubio’s open hand and Valentine’s Day plea that America and the continent
“belong together,” policymakers here have been so jarred by Trump that they’re
planning for a future in which they cannot rely on the U.S.
Alarmed
by Trump’s threats against Greenland but perhaps emboldened by his fulfilling,
again, of the TACO theory that he will inevitably back down in the face of
market backlash, European leaders spoke bluntly about the administration. And
more significantly, they went about discussing a sort-of NATO within the EU and
the need for a nuclear umbrella outside Washington’s control.
America’s
global leadership “has been challenged, and possibly squandered,” said German
Chancellor Friedrich Merz, distancing Europe from “the culture war of the MAGA
movement” while also taking a page from Vance last year by lecturing his
American guests.
Alluding
to a future of great power competition between the U.S. and China, Merz said,
“NATO is not only Europe’s competitive advantage, it is also the United States’
competitive advantage.”
In other
words: You need us, too.
French
President Emmanuel Macron, in his remarks, said flatly that “Europe has to
become a geopolitical power” and, echoing Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s
watershed Davos speech about middle powers, said that means “derisking
vis-a-vis all the big powers in order to be much more independent.”
The
ongoing war in Ukraine and how to bring it to a just conclusion marked many of
the plenary sessions and closed-door meetings. Yet while the biggest rally
outside the conference last year was a demonstration of support for their
besieged European neighbor, this year over 200,000 people gathered over a
conflict yet still to come — overthrowing the Iranian regime.
Chanting
“democracy for Iran,” and beckoning the deposed shah’s son, who was present in
Munich, the demonstrators were joined by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who
hoisted the prerevolution Iranian flag and sported a “Make Iran Great Again”
cap.
In an
interview, Graham told me that if Trump and others don’t follow through on
their pledge last month that help is on the way to Iran, it would mean “you
can’t rely on America yet again” and “the Western world is full of crap.”
If the
prospect of a new Middle East war dominated the streets of Munich, it was hard
to escape American affairs within the conference.
Ever
since the late-Sen. John McCain made this pilgrimage a rite of the winter
calendar, the MSC, as it’s shorthanded, has drawn a range of U.S. lawmakers and
policy officials.
Yet
rarely has American politics so clearly intruded on the proceedings.
There was
Hillary Clinton on stage denouncing Trump, only to be told by a Czech official
that Trump’s original victory against her was the result of the left’s “woke”
excesses. (OK, so there were a few arguments from yesteryear.)
And there
was another New Yorker, AOC, making what was effectively her national security
debut by calling for a more progressive approach to foreign policy. But her
appearance may be best recalled for her halting answer on that mainstay of
foreign policy: what to do about Taiwan.
And then
there was Rubio, who, whether to a stadium of MAGA faithful at Charlie Kirk’s
memorial service last year or a ballroom of confirmed globalists here, keeps
popping up with viral remarks to remind Republicans of what could be. A list of
Republicans, I should add, that includes the political theater critic in chief:
Donald J. Trump.
The more
immediate future, however, was on the minds of the congressional Democrats
here.
Representative
Jason Crow (D-Colo.), who may be the rare House lawmaker so bold as to bypass
the Senate before seeking the presidency, had a joint press conference with AOC
but sought to tamp down his not-so-subtle ambitions when I asked about 2028.
“I
learned in the Army that if you’re not focused on the battle in front of you,
the mission in front of you, you’re not doing the right job,” Crow told me,
referring to the 2026 elections.
Nobody
was happier to see potential future stars from the House show up than the most
famous member of the chamber, and Munich regular, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi,
recalling precisely how many women in each party were in the House when she
arrived in 1987, told me it was especially important for AOC to be here and for
female politicians to “have a security credential.”
The
former speaker, though, was far more focused on the midterms and minced no
words about why Europeans should be, as well.
“I don’t
want them to be [concerned],” Pelosi told me about America’s allies.
Why not?
I asked.
“Because
we’re going to win the elections in 10 months and Hakeem Jeffries will be
speaker and there will be ways to hold in check some of what they’re going to
do,” she said, alluding to the Trump administration.
Pelosi,
continuing, said: “What’s hope? Hope is in what is going to come next, and that
is: We will win this election, and maybe the Senate, too, if we win big enough
as we’ve done in the past.”
It was a
characteristically blunt assessment from somebody with such deep relationships
here that she could scarcely walk between sessions without being stopped by
heads of state and other high-ranking officials.
Those
leaders would have been more alarmed than assured, though, by Pelosi’s
matter-of-fact prediction that Trump would “of course” attempt to intervene in
the midterm elections.
As the
president talks about federalizing the country’s elections or somehow issuing
an edict requiring states to check ID cards before people can vote, Pelosi said
she and her colleagues were already planning for Trump to challenge results and
perhaps not seat duly-elected winners. “We’re ready for that,” she said.
On a more
distant future election, Pelosi was equally matter of fact, telling me that
“yes, of course” she’ll support Newsom should her fellow San Franciscan run for
president.
Newsom
was mobbed as much as Pelosi, posing for selfies in between meetings that could
have been mistaken for sessions between heads of state. The governor met with
Merz and, in the protocol of two leaders meeting, exchanged gifts with Prime
Minister Pedro Sanchez. Newsom gave the Spaniard books including The Handmaid’s
Tale, assuring him that “we’re not trying to rewrite history,” and Sanchez gave
the Californian a copy of Don Quixote to help him “face giants.”
Newsom’s
message behind closed doors, he told me, was that “none of this is permanent”
and that Trump has never been more politically weakened. He said he told
European leaders that the president had been humbled on immigration, and was
therefore pulling agents out of Minnesota, would soon have his tariff power
constrained by the Supreme Court and would assuredly take a beating in the
midterms.
In an
earlier time, such comments overseas about the president from a domestic rival
and leader of America’s largest state would have been extraordinary.
There’s
not much shock value left to be had, though.
Trump,
Newsom said, is “a wrecking-ball president.”
Paraphrasing
the old Sam Rayburn line that “any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a
good carpenter to build one,” the governor said, “We’re going to need a good
carpenter” to repair America’s relationships around the globe.
I didn’t
have to ask whom he had in mind.
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