Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used the 82nd anniversary of D-Day to compare migrants crossing the Mediterranean to the Nazi invasion of Europe — and the backlash was immediate and bipartisan.
Speaking at the Normandy ceremony, Hegseth departed from solemn remembrance to deliver an anti-immigration political statement. “Sadly, today different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies,” he said. “In Spain and Italy and Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Or is it too late?”
Greg Bagwell, a retired British Air Marshal and former senior RAF commander, was among the first to respond. “The commemoration of the bravery, tragedy and importance of D-Day is not ever the place to try and score cheap political points. What an ignorant and disrespectful dumba–.”
Tom Nichols, a national security expert and staff writer at The Atlantic, noted a glaring historical problem with Hegseth’s framing — one that multiple people picked up on. “Making an analogy where the West is the defender of the beaches — you know, where the Nazis were — is not the smartest speechifying,” Nichols wrote, “even for the man some inside the Pentagon refer to as ‘Dumb McNamara.’” His post was reposted by former Republican congresswoman Barbara Comstock.
Reed Galen, a Republican strategist and co-founder of the Lincoln Project, was less clinical about it. “If you’ve been to the American Military Cemetery in Normandy, and you’ve looked out over those rows of crosses and stars of David, you’ll know how odious this man is,” he wrote. “Those men didn’t die for this ideology or a——- like Pete Hegseth.”
British attorney Jessica Simor pointed to Hegseth’s “Deus Vult” tattoo — the 1095 Crusader rallying cry of Pope Urban II to expel Muslims from Jerusalem, which has since been adopted as a symbol by far-right extremists. “As a far-right Christian nationalist, likely of the kind that favoured the Final Solution, he should have been banned,” she wrote.
Political commentator Anna Neumann put it plainly: “The heroes of Normandy deserve remembrance, gratitude and humility. Using D-Day commemorations as a platform for culture-war politics is shameless.”
Occupy Democrats noted the core absurdity: Hegseth had compared migrant boats to the Allied invasion — placing Europe’s governments in the rhetorical position of the forces that were trying to stop it.
Tim Kaine also weighed in, saying, “Apparently our nitwit Secretary of War(drobe) thinks a D-Day commemoration is an appropriate time to push his far right ideology in Europe.”
Podcast host Matthew Yglesias chimed in with a question:
“Why did he construct an analogy in which he is on the side of the Nazis?”
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