This wasn’t CPAC or a conservative media interview; these were prewritten remarks from a U.S. defense secretary at a solemn event.
It’s not easy for a leading American official to screw up a D-Day commemoration ceremony in Normandy.
With his ugly anti-immigrant remarks, Pete Hegseth managed to find a way to do it anyway.
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-06-08T13:23:53.048Z
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/hegseth-faces-pushback-after-voicing-anti-immigrant-message-at-d-day-commemoration
Soon after, the former Fox News host delivered his comments, at which point things went from bad to worse. NBC News reported:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used a speech marking the anniversary of D-Day in France on Saturday, commemorating 82 years since the 1944 push to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe, to lambast what he described as another “invasion” of Europe’s shores.
“Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies,” Hegseth said in a speech at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer.
“Beaches in Spain, in Italy, in Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion, or is it too late? I pray not, and I believe not.”
On D-Day, the lesson was supposed to be alliance, sacrifice, and the defense of democracy. Hegseth turns that memory into an anti-migrant “invasion†riff.
— The Steady State (@thesteadystate.org) 2026-06-06T23:00:03.785Z
That Hegseth has an anti-immigrant vision is unsurprising, but context is everything. This wasn’t CPAC or a conservative media interview, these were prewritten remarks at a D-Day commemoration ceremony.
A day later, even Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, the former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, conceded during an interview on ABC’s “This Week” that Hegseth’s remarks were
“inappropriate.”
The Texan, who’s retiring at the end of his term, added,
“Look, there’s a time and a place for these issues of immigration. That was not the day, not the anniversary of D-Day. I think out of respect to the veterans, and myself being the son of a D-Day veteran, those remarks were out of place. I think it should have been about their sacrifice, their service to their country, and what they did to protect the free world at a time of great peril against Nazi Germany.”
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