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Pete Hegseth warns Europe faces 'invasion of dangerous ideologies' during D-Day anniversary speech His remarks were delivered in Normandy during commemorations for the 82nd anniversary of the landings during the Second World War, which saw American and allied forces liberate Western Europe from Nazi occupation. Hegseth's comments echo criticisms frequently voiced by President Trump regarding Europe and its immigration policies. Speaking at the ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, Hegseth said: "Sadly today, different European beaches are stormed by different, dangerous ideologies. Almost 133,000 troops from the US the British Commonwealth, and their allies landed on the beaches. The remarks come a day after US Vice President claimed that student Henry Nowak would still be alive if Europe had tightened its grip on the "mass invasion of migrants". JD Vance described the 18-year-old's death as "tragic as it is enraging" in the latest intervention by the Trump administration over the case. He said: "Henry Nowak died the same way a civilisation dies, abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him, and accused of hate crimes he did not commit. "His murder is as tragic as it is enraging." Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #lewisgoodall #hegseth #vance #nowak #dday #immigration #culture #debate #news #uspolitics #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
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We heard the US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth at a D-Day commemoration this weekend
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saying, using that opportunity not to talk about just the heroism and the blood sacrifice to defeat Nazism
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but instead to use, at that moment, to score political points. He said, when will European capitals do something about an invasion of migrants before it's too late
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I pray not. I believe not. Not the words of some jumped up blogger or far right agitator, but the U.S. Defense Secretary, as I say, at a D-Day commemoration
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There is something profoundly ugly happening in American conservatism right now. A politics drenched so much in grievance, in decadence, in online rage that even D-Day, D-Day, the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, becomes just another backdrop for culture war propaganda
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Pete Hexler standing on the beaches where thousands died fighting fascism and talking himself about European beaches facing invasion from migrants and foreign ideology
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In the same week that the U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance takes the horrific murder of Henry Novak, a grieving family, a dead teenage boy, and turned it into a sermon about civilizational decline and mass invasion
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And although there is much to be angry about with the Novak case, and though there is much for the family to be angry about, about police failures, angry at the grotesque images of a dying teenager in handcuffs, fair enough
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But what Vance is doing and has done is something darker. He and Hegseth try to turn every crime, every institutional failure
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every social anxiety, every historical moment into evidence that our liberal democracies are doomed
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that the West has been contaminated, that liberalism equals collapse. And once you start talking about countries being contaminated or invaded or corrupted from within
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and you start talking about civilisational collapse, you are into dangerous territory
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History and all those boys who died on D-Day would tell you where it was going
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And the deepest irony of all is that the men who died and landed in Normandy
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were fighting exactly against the worldview that people like J.D. Vance and Pete Hegseth now opine upon
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The idea that nations are divided and defined by blood and grievance and ethnic paranoia
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They were fighting for democratic pluralism and alliances and liberal civilisation, not the endless politics of fear and resentment
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masquerading as patriotism. The vice president has said, he's tweeted, that Henry Novak would still be alive today
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and he would be if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self and the mass invasion of migrants many of whom despise the West and the people who love it
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What do you say to the US Vice President? I fundamentally disagree with J.D. Vance on lots of things, including that statement or tweet that he's put out
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I disagreed with his ysis on the challenges that mass migration has caused countries in Western Europe, including ours
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There are challenges, no doubt, but I disagree with his ysis of those and the radical ysis that he offers
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And actually, you know, what we've what we've seen is this tragic, horrific crime
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The perpetrator has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a starting point of, I think, 22 years, 21 years
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And now a proper and rigorous independent investigation of the policing of that incident
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Now, look, that is how a proper process should work. I'm pleased that that's happening
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It needs to happen as quickly as possible, and we need to get answers as quickly as possible. But we don't need the American vice president
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essentially trying to kind of transplant his politics onto what is a very specific and horrific tragedy
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I don't think that's helpful. I suppose, Minister, he might have said, whether we disagree with him or not, he might have said the same thing when Keir Starmer took the knee
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in the wake of George Floyd's death. Well, I think there are some fundamental differences in the circumstances there
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Frankly, Lewis, I'm not particularly interested in the politics of gestures. That's not to say it's not important, because sometimes it's important for leaders to show solidarity with movements, whether they be global or domestic
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Well, Pierre Starmer took the knee. That was a gesture. Yeah, and that was a gesture of solidarity with black communities in the UK and indeed across the world who felt that what happened to George Floyd was symptomatic of a wider problem in our societies
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Well, J.D. Vance would say the same thing. I mean, you and I might well disagree with him, but he would say the same thing about white people
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But Lewis, it's not a gesture to butt in on an essentially a law and order process, which is working in our country, where we have put this evil criminal behind bars with a life sentence
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And we are now having a vigorous and full investigation as to the policing into that matter
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Now, it's slightly different, but frankly, I'm not particularly interested in gestures that happened years ago
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I'm not particularly interested in what J.D. Vance has to tweet. I'm really interested in making sure that we learn the lessons from what happened to Henry Novak and that it never happens again
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How are U.S.-U.K. relations, would you say, given we've got the U.S. vice president basically accusing your government of allowing young men to die because of your own ideology
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Well, my boss, David Lammy, has spoken to J.D. Vance. I think they've, as the phrase that a lot of podcasts use nowadays, disagreed agreeably on this subject
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Look a relationship with America is really important and it would be ridiculous for me to say well we disagree with J Vance on this we don like him tweeting So we going to kind of turn our back on America We have intrinsic links with America whether they are economic
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Shut up. Shut up. We don't need to hear them. You could just tell them we don't need to hear
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anyone. We don't interfere at a ministerial level. It'd be quite inappropriate, right
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for you to start wading into American politics. Why do they feel they're able to wade into ours
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I've been pretty clear, Lewis, that I disagree with his tweet. I don't think that his tweet is helpful. I'm sure that's what the Deputy Prime Minister told him when they spoke earlier today
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It's the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, you'll be aware. So many British American European heroes
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died that day, and indeed from across the then British Empire as well. Yesterday, at the
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commemoration, the US Defence slash War Secretary, Pete Hexith, chose to use the occasion to make
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political remarks. He said, in the sort of vein of J.D. Vance, sadly today, different European
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beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies beaches in spain italy greece bulgaria
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boats and men arrive when will european capitals do something about that invasion or is it too late
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i pray not four and a half thousand allied troops died on d-day to defeat nazism did peter hexis
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just insult their memory yeah i think it's totally inappropriate wrong and i'm actually horrified
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Lewis, that, you know, someone would, when they're, at a moment when we're there to remember
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those heroes who fell for all of us to enjoy the freedoms that we do today, that at that moment
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you would launch some sort of political argument, I guess, if you can call it that
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about illegal migration. Of course, illegal migration and small boats crisis is one of
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the biggest issues that come up in my constituency. It's one that I think this government has to get
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a grip of over the next few years. And I'm sure Shabana McMood's reforms will do that. But let's
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when we're discussing D-Day and the history of those heroes, that's not the moment for politics
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It's not the moment for those types of arguments. And I wish he hadn't made them
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What's wrong with him? Well, I couldn't possibly comment, Lewis. That's for others to, that's for others to
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yze. I don't think it was an appropriate remark. And I'm sure, well, maybe I'm not sure
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But I hope he regrets it, too. Your views on what the Defense Secretary, the U.S. Defense Secretary, said
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OK, good morning and thank you very much for having me. Let's be clear, I have enormous respect for the United States, for the American servicemen and women who crossed the days on D-Day
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because during my service, I had the great privilege of serving alongside some of those units
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particularly the Ranger Regiment, who helped liberate Europe from tyranny. And that's why I find these remarks so disappointing
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D-Day is not simply a commemoration of military courage. It was a commemoration of a coalition of free peoples brought together to defeat fascism
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So on days like D we remember who fought in the Second World War We remember not only British American and Canadian service people but we remember Sikhs Muslims Hindus of the Indian Army We remember our African service personnel Caribbean airmen
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and seafarers, those people that served in the Royal and Merchant Nabies. And we remember people
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of all faiths, ethnicities and backgrounds who fought for a common cause. So Mr. Hedgeserth
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should remind himself that the lesson of D-Day is not that nations should fear people because of
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where they came from. It is that free societies are strongest when they unite around democratic
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values. And I would like to, you know, point all of those people that make comments, such as
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those that were made over the last couple of days, to, you know, President Roosevelt's speech
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his prayer that he made ahead of D-Day or on D-Day talking about the suffering of humanity
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and his and Mr Churchill's vision of a post-war world that was founded on liberty, democracy and the rule of law
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And those are the things that our allied personnel spoke about, fought for and died for
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And those are the things that he should have been speaking about yesterday
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today um mr hexis got a bit of track record in saying some pretty remarkable things for such a
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senior member of the u.s government obviously he works for a guy who says even more remarkable
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things arguably but did this surprise you given the event that he was at
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yeah entirely and that's that's why i say it's incredibly um depressing because whatever your
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views on migration policy, D-Day is just such a perverse place on which to suggest that
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people arriving on Europe's shores are ogous to the threats faced of those on the beaches
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of Normandy. And what we've seen over the last couple of days with J.D. Vance's remarks about the Sikh
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community after the horrific murder of Henry Norwick, that the suggestion that crimes should
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be judged based on people's ethnicities really undermines the very fundamentals of what people
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fought for on D-Day, and that was liberal democracy and equality of citizenship. And
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we must all be clear that as a liberal democracy at the moment
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that we are having many attacks on those fundamental freedoms. And it is not just Russia that has a strategy of malign interference in our democracy
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And we must all defend ourselves from those attacks, regardless of what the source is
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