Defense Secretary marks D-Day with neo-Nazi screed at cemetery in France

Today marks the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, the historic Allied invasion of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, which began the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control during World War II.

The last living World War II veterans made the journey to France to commemorate the Normandy landings, which mark the beginning of the Allied campaign to liberate Western Europe from Nazi Germany, but Hegseth’s comments were more geared toward the other side.

World leaders, veterans, and military officials mark the date to honor the sacrifices made by the nearly 160,000 Allied troops who took part in the massive amphibious operation, but US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used the occasion to urge Europe to repel what he termed an “invasion” of immigration, an expression of the malignant xenophobia and bigotry that defines President Donald Trump’s neo-fascist ideology.

“Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies,” Hegseth said. On “beaches in Spain and Italy and Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive,” he said. “When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Or is it too late?”

This neo-Nazi dog whistle, soaked in crusader fantasy and violent white supremacist panic, constituted Hegseth’s speech at the military cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, the site of the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944.

Hegseth’s view that migrants, especially those from Muslim-majority countries, pose cultural or economic threats to European civilization mirrors the Nazi rhetoric about Jews.

“The brave men who stormed the beaches of Normandy were fighting people like you, Pete,” said XR developer, 3D artist, writer, and director J. Dakota Powell, responding to the former Fox News host.

“Comparing migrants and refugees to Nazi invaders and inciting violence against them, according to Zeteo News Editor-in-Chief Mehdi Hasan, is, “straight-up far-right Nazi shit.”

Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology that prioritizes the absolute supremacy of the state over the individual.

It emerged in early 20th-century Europe, famously in Benito Mussolini’s Italy and Adolf Hitler’s Germany, and is characterized by dictatorial power, militarism, and the violent suppression of opposition.

Hitler’s brand of fascism was punctuated by claims that the “master race” — comprised of white Europeans —is inherently superior, using this as a justification for extreme nationalism, territorial expansion, the persecution of minorities, and genocide

Hegseth’s remarks mirrored the Trump administration’s stance that mass migration poses a threat to European civilization.

Scholars and civil rights groups have pointed out that his past writings—such as his assertions regarding the “infiltration” of communities and “Islamism” as an inherently aggressive global threat—can parallel the ideological frameworks used by far-right groups and “Great Replacement” theorists.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, opposed Hegseth’s nomination for Secretary of Defense due to his calls for the destruction of Al-Aqsa Masjid, support for war crimes, and his past smears targeting Muslims and Islam.

Some Republicans strongly object and are deeply offended by being labeled Nazis, but others embrace the label and openly exhibit a desire to exterminate Jews, the LGBT community, Muslims, and people of color.

Amazingly, in the age of Trump, specifically in today’s Republican Party, Nazis, Holocaust-deniers, white supremacists, and those who align with them are running for Congress — all under the GOP banner.

The Department of Homeland Security featured an anthem favored by neo-Nazi groups, “By God We’ll Have Our Home Again,” in a recruitment ad.

The Labor Department displayed a massive banner of Donald Trump’s face on its headquarters, evoking images of Berlin in 1936, and shared phrases on social media like “America for Americans”—a clear echo of the Nazi slogan “Germany for the Germans”—and “Americanism Will Prevail,” using the same font as Third Reich documents.

Arthur Jones of Illinois was an actual Nazi. John Fitzgerald of California was a Holocaust denier. Corey Stewart of Virginia took pro-Confederate and alt-right stances before his death. Bill Fawell of Illinois thought Israel was one of the “masterminds” of 9/11. Then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) all but admitted the truth of allegations that he addressed a white supremacist rally. Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) held a fundraiser with Holocaust denier Charles Johnson — and Gaetz, now a convicted sex trafficker, has only doubled down on far-right extremism from prison-adjacent media.

And those were just the Republicans running for Congress nearly a decade ago. Today, in 2026, the GOP has metastasized.

State-level GOP candidates to Trump himself have openly praised Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian Christian nationalism.

Neo-Nazi podcaster Nick Fuentes dines with Republican members of Congress. In 2024, a sitting Republican state legislator in Idaho proposed a resolution praising “Great Replacement” theory as fact.

In 2025, the Republican nominee for governor in Michigan was exposed as a regular contributor to a forum celebrating Hitler’s birthday. And in Missouri, a 2024 Republican primary for the state house was won by a candidate who called for “final solutions” to immigration — using the phrase deliberately.

The leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump — now a convicted felon awaiting sentencing for election subversion — openly called neo-Nazis “very fine people” in 2017 and has never once retracted it.

In 2024, he praised January 6 rioters as “patriots” and “hostages,” including those affiliated with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

The modern “America First” movement not only broadly identifies with nationalism, economic protectionism, and isolationist foreign policy, but the slogan has historical ties with 1930s Nazi-sympathizing isolationist groups.

Trump’s refusal to condemn the Nazis in his own party is no longer a failure of moral leadership — it is active collaboration. And the party he still controls has stopped pretending otherwise.

The 82nd anniversary of the World War II D-Day landings in Normandy was not the first time Hegseth called on European countries to mimic the Nazis.

In his 2020 book American Crusade, Hegseth rails against Muslim birth rates and characterizes refugees and migrants in American communities as leeches. He wrote that Islam ‘is not a religion of peace, and it never has been’ and claims that ‘all modern Muslim countries are either formal or de facto no-go zones for practicing Christians and Jews.’

Looking toward Europe, Hegseth’s ‘American Crusade’ openly peddles the same racist, Islamophobic garbage found in neo-Nazi manifestos, targeting elected Muslim officials in the UK and the growing European Muslim population to whip up fear that the U.S. is next.

“Though insulated by distance and its ‘traditional Christian fabric,’ the United States,” Hegseth shrieks, is under a cultural invasion “not just at our shore, it’s in your community and schools.”

In November 2019, according to his book, 26 Muslim candidates won elected office, and “Muhammad is now a top ten boys’ name in America.”

This was followed by the explicitly fascist call to arms.

“Our present moment is much like the 11th Century. We don’t want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians one thousand years ago, we must,” Hegseth wrote. “Arm yourself — metaphorically, intellectually, physically. Our fight is not with guns. Yet.”

Twenty-nine World War II veterans who attended this year’s ceremony were honored by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine.

“[To] the veterans of World War II who are here with us today, and those who did not come home, thank you — thank you for your courage, tenacity and grit that you showed the world on that day, and the days that followed,” Caine told the men.

The American Battle Monuments Commission commemoration of the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day landings, one of the most pivotal moments in modern history, was held at Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, with U.S. and French dignitaries, veterans’ associations, and others.

Hegseth was conspicuously set to skip the main international ceremony marking the anniversary of the landings, which heralded an end to World War II, later in the afternoon.