Leave it to Pete Hegseth to ruin D-Day

Leave it to Pete Hegseth to ruin D-Day
The French are still grateful for America’s 1944 sacrifice. Hegseth’s loathsome tirade may have changed that

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published June 9, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) If you’ve ever been to Normandy in early June of any given year, you probably saw something that’s not all that common. Around the anniversary of the D-Day invasion on June 6, the whole place turns into a love-fest for America. Or at least it used to. After what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did on his visit this year, I’m not sure that will ever happen again.

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Barack Obama was equally moving on the 70th anniversary in 2014, saying, “What more powerful manifestation of America’s commitment to human freedom than the sight of wave after wave after wave of young men boarding those boats to liberate people they had never met?”

This year marked the 82nd anniversary, and almost no one who was there in 1944 is still with us. Thankfully, America didn’t send Donald Trump over there to rant about the 2020 election or show the French pictures of his glorious ballroom. Instead, we sent Hegseth, who was at least as bad. Actually, he was worse. I think most of the world knows what Trump is by now, but some may still have believed that he was an anomaly who may still have some sane people around him. If so, Hegseth quickly put that thought to rest.

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Did his speech go over well? It did not. Perhaps the best retort, among many, came from distinguished English historian Simon Schama, who described Hegseth’s words as “a special kind of loathsomeness: a blend of historical deafness, grotesque stupidity and comically ludicrous self-importance. As if the little people’s rage against immigration somehow is superior to the war against the Third Reich and entitles this comic book nobody to lecture the actual heroes.” ..................................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/06/09/leave-it-to-pete-hegseth-to-ruin-d-day/