On Sunday, 16 February 2025, Christoph Heusgen closed the 61st Munich Security Conference. Fox News printed his words: “This conference started as a trans-Atlantic conference. After the speech of Vice President Vance on Friday, we have to fear that our common value base is not that common anymore. I’m very grateful to all those European politicians that spoke out and reaffirmed the values and principles that they are defending. No one did this better than President Zelenskyy, who has been fighting for these values – democracy, freedom, rule of law for the past three years.”
Fox also printed the next passage: “It is clear that our rules-based international order is under pressure.” He said a 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.” Those sentences are his. They are not a court finding.
Clips circulated of him breaking down. The Munich Security Conference posted that he “did not shed a few tears out of ‘frustration.’” It was, the conference said, his farewell as he left the MSC after that year’s conference. A spokesperson repeated that account to Fox News Digital. Heusgen told Fox: “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.” He called a circulating video a scene of departure taken “out of context.” Readers can hold both: the Vance sentence he chose to put in the close, and the conference’s account of the tears.
Jens Stoltenberg had already been named as the next chairman. That is a separate documented succession, not a punishment.