President Donald Trump isn’t exactly the most popular person among America’s European allies, though Vice President Mike Pence doesn’t seem to have expected that.
Addressing America’s allies in a speech at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, Pence offered a standard applause line and gave those listening a chance to do just that.
“I bring greetings from the 45th President of the United States of America, President Donald Trump,” Pence said to the attendees. Pence then paused, presumably for the audience to clap, and was greeted with a lengthy silence.
The Vice President attended the annual security conference in Germany with a bipartisan delegation, which included Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
The awkward moment highlights what has become an increasingly fraught relationship between the United States and its European allies. Many at the conference were rattled by the Vice President’s demand that France, Germany and the U.K. withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
During the conference, German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended the Iran deal and said the division between Europe and the U.S. on it “depresses me very much.”
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