Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / LIVE from Normandy: D-Day 80th Anniversary-Celebrating American Heroes

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LIVE from Normandy: D-Day 80th Anniversary-Celebrating American Heroes · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson
0:05
Speaker 1: with you, Senator, it's an international pod tonight, as you're
0:08
Speaker 1: across the pond.
0:10
Speaker 2: Well, that's right. This is our very first podcast that
0:12
Speaker 2: I have done from Paris, France. I am in Paris
0:16
Speaker 2: right now. I flew yesterday to Normandy to be here
0:23
Speaker 2: for the eightieth anniversary of D Day. I was at
0:27
Speaker 2: the celebration all day. I've got meetings the next couple
0:31
Speaker 2: of days here.
0:32
Speaker 3: Uh.
0:32
Speaker 2: And it was really an incredible time celebrating what was
0:36
Speaker 2: what was an historic landmark, a milestone that that changed
0:42
Speaker 2: the course of history. And the heroism, the courage that
0:46
Speaker 2: was shown by by by those American gis that that
0:50
Speaker 2: that that that landed on the coast of France, and
0:53
Speaker 2: and that that that invaded the continent to take take
0:57
Speaker 2: back the continent from the Nazis. It was incredibly dangerous,
1:04
Speaker 2: incredibly difficult, incredibly inspiring, and it changed the course of history.
1:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is truly incredible. And there's also the politics
1:12
Speaker 1: that are now coming out with the Biden campaign as well.
1:16
Speaker 4: Uh.
1:16
Speaker 1: They're now trying to use D Day to advocate for
1:19
Speaker 1: funding with Ukraine that had to be shocking to you.
1:23
Speaker 2: Well, it's not surprising because everything they do is political.
1:27
Speaker 2: That that that's how that that's how they approach. Unfortunately,
1:31
Speaker 2: day to day life is it's all politics all the time.
1:34
Speaker 5: Uh.
1:35
Speaker 2: But but I got to tell you that nothing can
1:37
Speaker 2: really diminish the experience of being here. It truly is extraordinary, uh,
1:44
Speaker 2: being with being with heroes, and and and and there
1:48
Speaker 2: were hundreds of World War Two veterans who came back
1:53
Speaker 2: for the eightieth anniversary of D Day. And these these
1:56
Speaker 2: guys are all you know, in their late nineties or
2:01
Speaker 2: in their hundreds. You know, if they were eighteen years
2:04
Speaker 2: old eighty years ago than they're ninety eight today. Now
2:07
Speaker 2: there's several of them that were even seventeen and sixteen
2:10
Speaker 2: and lied about their ages. So there are a couple
2:12
Speaker 2: that are younger, that are ninety six and ninety seven.
2:14
Speaker 2: But I visited today with with with one World War
2:18
Speaker 2: Two veteran. There was one hundred and four. And these
2:20
Speaker 2: guys are incredible euros And when you look at what
2:25
Speaker 2: they did, it was truly incredible. June fourth, nineteen forty four,
2:31
Speaker 2: Operation Overlord, which was the code name for the Allied
2:35
Speaker 2: invasion of Normandy France. More than one hundred and fifty
2:39
Speaker 2: thousand troops landed at D Day, and when they landed,
2:46
Speaker 2: they they landed into German machine gun fire. You had soldiers, had,
2:53
Speaker 2: you had barriers they'd put on the beach. And more
2:57
Speaker 2: than twenty nine thousand US servicemen members were either killed
3:01
Speaker 2: or injured during the norm of the operation, including more
3:05
Speaker 2: than six thousand on the very first day of the landing.
3:08
Speaker 2: And it is when you look at today. I stood
3:14
Speaker 2: at Omaha Beach and looked out and you imagine coming
3:20
Speaker 2: across that sand and coming into just machine gun fire.
3:25
Speaker 2: The bravery that was demonstrated on that day was just breathmaking.
3:30
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Speaker 1: slash verdict. And all you that have already gotten involved,
5:21
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being involved in fighting back
5:24
Speaker 1: against the radicals at Planned Parenthood. This adieth anniversary, and
5:29
Speaker 1: you mentioned hundreds came over, and there's so many veterans
5:33
Speaker 1: groups that just do amazing work fundraising and helping these veterans,
5:42
Speaker 1: these heroes war to even get to Normandy to D Day,
5:46
Speaker 1: and the way that they do it and the way
5:48
Speaker 1: that they give them such honor and respect from the
5:51
Speaker 1: moment that they get to the airport in the US
5:53
Speaker 1: until the moment this trip is over when they get
5:55
Speaker 1: back home. But this is a very significant year because
5:59
Speaker 1: it is the eightieth anniversary, and if you just do
6:01
Speaker 1: the math, a lot of these veterans that you got
6:04
Speaker 1: to be with literally today this will probably be their
6:08
Speaker 1: last time to go to Normandy, just because of age.
6:13
Speaker 2: Well, that's right. And I had the opportunity to go
6:17
Speaker 2: to the seventy fifth anniversary five years ago and I
6:19
Speaker 2: didn't go. I had a scheduling conflict and I had
6:22
Speaker 2: something else I had to do, and I have regretted
6:24
Speaker 2: it every day since then. I should have fixed the
6:26
Speaker 2: scheduling conflict. That I was mad at myself that I
6:30
Speaker 2: didn't just just push aside the scheduling conflict and go
6:35
Speaker 2: for the seventy fifth. So for the eightieth anniversary, you're right,
6:40
Speaker 2: there's a very good chance that the next one that
6:43
Speaker 2: happens that we're not going to have World War Two
6:48
Speaker 2: veterans still with us, or if we do, it's going
6:50
Speaker 2: to be very very few. And actually the news broke
6:55
Speaker 2: today the one of the World War two veterans who
6:57
Speaker 2: was one hundred and two actually died traveling to France
7:01
Speaker 2: to come to this and and it's just, you know,
7:04
Speaker 2: they're they're at the age now where they all understand
7:07
Speaker 2: that this is the you know, the the the the
7:11
Speaker 2: end of their passage. But but it was incredible. I
7:16
Speaker 2: spent a lot of the day shaking hands with with
7:20
Speaker 2: with these men, thanking them. And you know, it's interesting
7:26
Speaker 2: then that there's a consistency in that, one after the
7:31
Speaker 2: other after the other. When you thank them for their bravery, bravery,
7:36
Speaker 2: they'll say, look, I I just did my job. If
7:42
Speaker 2: you call them a hero, they'll argue with you. They'll say,
7:45
Speaker 2: I wasn't a hero. Uh. The the heroes are buried
7:50
Speaker 2: behind us. And and I got to say, when you
7:54
Speaker 2: you stand in the cemetery and you just see the
7:59
Speaker 2: line after line of white crosses and white stars of David,
8:06
Speaker 2: of servicemen and women, when you walk through that cemetery
8:11
Speaker 2: and you read name after name after name, and they're
8:14
Speaker 2: all so young. They're all eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty one
8:19
Speaker 2: years old, and so many of them they came off
8:24
Speaker 2: and amphibious ship and were shot and killed right on
8:29
Speaker 2: the beach. And it's incredible.
8:34
Speaker 1: You know, my grandfather fought in War two and he
8:37
Speaker 1: talked about when they all just went and signed up,
8:40
Speaker 1: and the story that he wanted his grandsons to know
8:46
Speaker 1: was how many young men signed up And you mentioned
8:48
Speaker 1: their age. Many of them lied about their age to
8:51
Speaker 1: serve their country. They were seventeen and even sixteen, and
8:55
Speaker 1: they lied. And the people, some of the people, he said,
8:59
Speaker 1: knew they were lying, and they went with it everyway
9:01
Speaker 1: because it went with it anyway, because everybody was new
9:04
Speaker 1: that this was a moment in history that you had
9:08
Speaker 1: to stand up and fight the Nazis or the world
9:11
Speaker 1: could fall.
9:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, including George Herbert Walker Bush, who, if I remember correctly,
9:18
Speaker 2: was seventeen when when he signed up to go fight
9:21
Speaker 2: in World War two. I mean, and that was you know,
9:25
Speaker 2: you had had young Americans stepping forward saying We're going
9:30
Speaker 2: to defend the world from tyranny and you know, particularly
9:34
Speaker 2: after Pearl Harbor and the attack on Pearl Harbor, when
9:36
Speaker 2: America was thrust into the war, you had just just
9:43
Speaker 2: ordinary people who did extraordinary things. And imagine how different
9:52
Speaker 2: the course of history would have been if the Nazis
9:56
Speaker 2: had prevailed. Yeah, Adolf Hitler lived his life as the
10:01
Speaker 2: dictator of Europe. The Nazis were unmitigated evil. We now
10:08
Speaker 2: know and many didn't know at the time about the
10:10
Speaker 2: concentration camps where they murdered over six million Jews. It
10:15
Speaker 2: was there are wars where both sides are in the
10:20
Speaker 2: right and both sides are in the wrong. World War
10:24
Speaker 2: two is not one of us the Nazis. The world
10:28
Speaker 2: would have been fundamentally different had the Allies not prevailed.
10:34
Speaker 2: And D Day, look, Dinna was not guaranteed to be
10:37
Speaker 2: a success. It was one of the most difficult military
10:41
Speaker 2: assaults ever planned, ever executed. And when you look at
10:46
Speaker 2: when you look at the cliffs they climbed, when you
10:49
Speaker 2: looked at look at the elevation they had to scale,
10:54
Speaker 2: and you imagine doing it with hand grenades and machine
10:59
Speaker 2: gun fire coming down at you, not to mention uh,
11:04
Speaker 2: incoming fire from from airplanes and and I mean it
11:10
Speaker 2: is extraordinary.
11:14
Speaker 1: My grandfather and my grandfather told me about D Day.
11:17
Speaker 1: He said, it was a day that we all knew
11:19
Speaker 1: that many of our friends were going to die, and
11:22
Speaker 1: that was accepted. It was just how many were going
11:26
Speaker 1: to die?
11:28
Speaker 2: Well, look and if you were, if you were in
11:31
Speaker 2: the first wave of the boats, almost all of those
11:33
Speaker 2: soldiers died. Uh and it h there there was The
11:42
Speaker 2: stakes were enormous. And what our country did without America
11:48
Speaker 2: in that war. Germany wins and and we came in
11:54
Speaker 2: and it was a moment that changed the course of history.
12:00
Speaker 1: Sinner. I want to talk about just the reaction first
12:05
Speaker 1: to Americans in France and and being at this ceremony,
12:10
Speaker 1: how how are you and and the rest of the
12:14
Speaker 1: people that are there, especially the veterans, how are they
12:17
Speaker 1: received by the people in France? And then I want
12:21
Speaker 1: to talk about just you, even the logistics and getting
12:25
Speaker 1: to this event and how all this came about.
12:29
Speaker 2: Well, look, the veterans are embraced and people are applauding
12:34
Speaker 2: and saying thank you, and I mean there's just an
12:37
Speaker 2: enormous amount of love and and look President McCrone was there,
12:43
Speaker 2: and and he was he was very gracious and and
12:46
Speaker 2: and he said quite rightly that that that the the
12:52
Speaker 2: American invasion at the day, and it was all the Allies,
12:54
Speaker 2: but it was the Americans leading it. Uh that that
12:57
Speaker 2: that that it liberated Frankis that that that France had
13:00
Speaker 2: been honkerd by Thenazis and and it's uh, the reaction
13:10
Speaker 2: in seeing these these heroes, most of them now are
13:14
Speaker 2: in wheelchairs and they just have a line of people
13:16
Speaker 2: coming up saying thank you and wanting to take pictures
13:19
Speaker 2: with them and shake their hands, and they're just, uh,
13:22
Speaker 2: you know, there's an enormous amount of appreciation when.
13:26
Speaker 1: When when you got this obviously the invite to go,
13:30
Speaker 1: how does this work? Who all got to go on
13:33
Speaker 1: this trip to obviously honor our men and women that
13:36
Speaker 1: gave the ultimate sacrifice or young boys. But you're going
13:40
Speaker 1: to honor uh and represent the United States of America.
13:43
Speaker 1: What do the logistics even look like?
13:47
Speaker 2: Well? Sure, so this is what's called a codel, which
13:50
Speaker 2: is a congressional delegation and and and it's official travel
13:55
Speaker 2: by members of Congress. And there are lots of codels
13:57
Speaker 2: that this is part of the job that you travel,
14:00
Speaker 2: You travel to other countries and you meet with military leaders,
14:05
Speaker 2: you meet with foreign leaders that that is a very
14:08
Speaker 2: important part of doing the job. I'm going to send
14:11
Speaker 2: it foreign Relations Committee, and so traveling to other countries,
14:14
Speaker 2: meeting with other leaders, understanding that this situation is very important.
14:20
Speaker 2: This codell. Typically codels are organized by one or two senators.
14:25
Speaker 2: This codell was organized by Richard Blomenthal, the Democrats from Connecticut,
14:30
Speaker 2: and John Boseman, a Republican from Arkansas. And this was
14:35
Speaker 2: a big codell. This was larger than normal. Often codels
14:39
Speaker 2: are in the Senate or three or four or five
14:42
Speaker 2: senators is a typical codell. This one, I think the
14:46
Speaker 2: council was nineteen, so you had a lot of Senators
14:49
Speaker 2: that came, and then there were a bunch of House
14:51
Speaker 2: members that came. I actually don't know how many House members,
14:53
Speaker 2: but I'd say twenty or thirty. It was a big
14:55
Speaker 2: group of House members that were here. And so the
15:00
Speaker 2: the logistically, the way this one worked is that we
15:05
Speaker 2: met at the Capitol and then we went over to
15:07
Speaker 2: Andrew's Air Force Base and we flew from Andrews Air
15:11
Speaker 2: Force Base to France on Air Force planes. So it's
15:15
Speaker 2: what's called mill Air Military air and so the Air
15:19
Speaker 2: Force maintains a number of planes that are used for
15:22
Speaker 2: official travel. And so we left on Wednesday late afternoons.
15:30
Speaker 2: We flew all night. We tried to sleep on the
15:35
Speaker 2: plane as much as we could, although you know, according
15:38
Speaker 2: to my are a ring tracker, I've had a total
15:43
Speaker 2: of fifty one minute sleep last night.
15:44
Speaker 1: So I've got to know you and I sleep as
15:48
Speaker 1: well on planes. I can't do it no matter what,
15:51
Speaker 1: even overseas. I've never been able to sleep on planes.
15:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just hard to sleep in an airplane. Plane.
15:57
Speaker 2: I got fifty one minutes that I've passed out, but
15:59
Speaker 2: it just I find it really tough to sleep in
16:03
Speaker 2: an airplane plane seats. But so we landed. We landed
16:07
Speaker 2: early in the morning today, so today is Thursday. We
16:13
Speaker 2: landed early in the morning at about six thirty in
16:17
Speaker 2: the morning, and we all uh disembarked the plane and
16:23
Speaker 2: changed clothes, so you know, I mean we traveled in
16:25
Speaker 2: jeans and traveling clothes, but then we changed to put
16:28
Speaker 2: on put on a suit and put on business business attire. Uh,
16:32
Speaker 2: And then we all got in buses to head to
16:35
Speaker 2: the ceremony. And there were there were two ceremonies today.
16:40
Speaker 2: There was one the American ceremony, uh. And that's that
16:44
Speaker 2: the American Cemetery, and that both Joe Biden and Macron
16:47
Speaker 2: both spoke there and and that had a lot of
16:52
Speaker 2: time honoring uh the World War Two veterans who were there.
16:57
Speaker 2: And then after that there was an international ceremony uh
17:03
Speaker 2: that featured a number of heads of state and and
17:07
Speaker 2: Justin Trudeau from Canada was there, and Prince Terry from
17:11
Speaker 2: the UK was there and and and it was that
17:17
Speaker 2: was predominantly driven by the French. So the international event
17:20
Speaker 2: was was very different from the American event. I attended both.
17:27
Speaker 2: And then after the events, Uh, now we're we're up
17:31
Speaker 2: in Normandy and and the rest of the trip is
17:34
Speaker 2: in Paris. So we uh we got on Blackhawk helicopters
17:39
Speaker 2: and went from Normandy to Paris. And how long is
17:43
Speaker 2: that fly?
17:44
Speaker 1: Out of curiosity? How long is that? And and and
17:46
Speaker 1: and and taking off from Normandy in a Blackhawk, that
17:50
Speaker 1: to me just seems really I don't know, touching historically.
17:55
Speaker 1: I mean you're taking the same flight that that many
17:58
Speaker 1: people were, you know, coming in and parachuting in.
18:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, it was really head cool, like there's no
18:04
Speaker 2: other way like as the helicopters taking off, and you're
18:08
Speaker 2: like looking at the beach and you're envisioning. When you're
18:11
Speaker 2: looking at the beach, you're envisioning just one hundred and
18:15
Speaker 2: fifty thousand gis landing on that beach. You're envisioning the
18:20
Speaker 2: smoke and the screens and the blood and the machine guns,
18:23
Speaker 2: and you're envisioning the ships as far as the eye
18:26
Speaker 2: can see, and the paratroopers raining down from on high
18:29
Speaker 2: and it was just kind of amazing. And for a
18:32
Speaker 2: chunk of it, we flew along the coast before we
18:35
Speaker 2: cut in to go to Paris, and so it was
18:37
Speaker 2: really you're flying over the French countryside and seeing the
18:41
Speaker 2: countryside and seeing the coast. That was very cool.
18:45
Speaker 4: And it.
18:48
Speaker 2: Ended up. I mean, it's now what time is it now?
18:51
Speaker 2: It is eleven oh eight pm. So this has been
18:55
Speaker 2: a very long day. We landed at Frances six point
18:58
Speaker 2: thirty in the morning and just got to the hotel
19:00
Speaker 2: room at eleven o'clock at night, so it has been
19:02
Speaker 2: a full day, but it was And then tomorrow I'm
19:09
Speaker 2: up early and a meeting with with the US embassy
19:13
Speaker 2: and doing the briefing with military briefing, and we've got
19:16
Speaker 2: a whole series of of meetings on issues impacting France
19:21
Speaker 2: and Europe that that that that I'll be attending. And
19:24
Speaker 2: then also on Saturday, we're going to go back to
19:27
Speaker 2: Normandy and do a tour of the battlefield and have
19:30
Speaker 2: an historical tour, which I'm really looking forward to as well.
19:35
Speaker 2: Today was the ceremony itself, but I'm looking forward to
19:38
Speaker 2: to to getting into some of the some of the
19:41
Speaker 2: real details of how how the invasion unfolded and what happened.
19:46
Speaker 1: I was watching Biden on on TV and and there
19:50
Speaker 1: was two faces that I noticed sitting there close to
19:53
Speaker 1: the front, two men that you got to meet today,
19:56
Speaker 1: and and and there's certain people and and moments where
20:00
Speaker 1: you meet a person in the context of some of
20:03
Speaker 1: their greatest work and it excites you.
20:06
Speaker 6: Uh.
20:06
Speaker 1: Two of those people you met today with Steven Spielberg
20:09
Speaker 1: and Tom Hanks, these are, as you described them, two
20:12
Speaker 1: master storytellers who've done a beautiful job chronicling the incredible
20:17
Speaker 1: heroism of the Greatest Generation. I could not agree with
20:20
Speaker 1: you more. What was it like to be there in
20:23
Speaker 1: Normandy with them and all that they have done to
20:26
Speaker 1: really raise awareness of the Greatest Generation and the Ultimate Sacrifice.
20:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was really cool. Like I had not met
20:35
Speaker 2: either one of them before, and they were both just
20:38
Speaker 2: kind of standing around before the ceremony started. They were
20:40
Speaker 2: talking to various people and and so I came up
20:44
Speaker 2: and introduced myself. I a conversation with both of them.
20:48
Speaker 2: With Spielberg, it was, you know, I said, you know,
20:51
Speaker 2: I told he's an amazing movie maker, and I love
20:54
Speaker 2: you know this, I love movies. I'm a diehard movie buff,
20:57
Speaker 2: and I just, you know, telling story as is incredibly important.
21:01
Speaker 2: And I actually I relate a story to him. So
21:04
Speaker 2: Saving Private Ryan, my uncle was a Vietnam vest and
21:09
Speaker 2: he worked for years as a counselor at the VA
21:14
Speaker 2: dealing with veterans who had mental health issues. And my
21:20
Speaker 2: uncle told me that when Saving Private Ryan came out,
21:22
Speaker 2: you know, the first twenty thirty minutes of it, where
21:26
Speaker 2: they're landing, I mean, it's as intense a war scene
21:30
Speaker 2: as I think there's ever been in a movie. And
21:34
Speaker 2: what I told Spielberg is, I said, my uncle told
21:36
Speaker 2: me that he had a lot of vets coming in
21:40
Speaker 2: were really triggered by that scene, and what they told
21:44
Speaker 2: him is that it got the sounds right. And they
21:47
Speaker 2: said it was the first war movie that got the
21:51
Speaker 2: sounds of combat exactly right, and it was bringing bet
21:55
Speaker 2: back like being back in in combat. So he was
22:00
Speaker 2: a therapist helping them work through that, and it was interesting.
22:06
Speaker 2: Spielbert was telling me. He said, look, they went to
22:08
Speaker 2: great lengths, you know, they they took all the different
22:13
Speaker 2: weapons and they fired them and had the microphones to
22:16
Speaker 2: to number one record the sounds of them. But they
22:19
Speaker 2: also he said, fired them into in decide to beat
22:23
Speaker 2: to get the like sound of them hitting a body
22:26
Speaker 2: and breaking bone and flesh. But and I took my
22:31
Speaker 2: uncle said also the sounds of bricichet and water with
22:34
Speaker 2: the bullets. That that in particular was an aspect that
22:39
Speaker 2: was really hope. You know. I also talked to him
22:44
Speaker 2: about Schindler's List, which was another incredible movie, And I
22:49
Speaker 2: was talking to you about how moved I was by
22:52
Speaker 2: the scene at the end where you know, Oscar Schindler's
22:55
Speaker 2: is sitting there after having saved so many people from
22:59
Speaker 2: concentration camp, saying, you know, he looks at his gold
23:01
Speaker 2: watch and says, you know, my god, I could have
23:04
Speaker 2: saved three people with that. How do I have a
23:06
Speaker 2: watch and three people are dead like that. The guilt
23:10
Speaker 2: he felt that as much as he did, he could
23:12
Speaker 2: have done more. And it was that was at nique
23:14
Speaker 2: conversation to have with Spielberg.
23:18
Speaker 1: I want to tell you about our friends over a
23:20
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Speaker 1: slash verdict. That's Patriot Mobile dot com slash verdict. I
25:20
Speaker 1: want to talk about the speech and and and I
25:23
Speaker 1: was watching and.
25:24
Speaker 2: Actually before before that let's not skip a Tom Hanks.
25:27
Speaker 2: So Hanks was there too, and so I got chatted
25:30
Speaker 2: with him too. Now, interestingly enough, Tom Hanks is actually
25:33
Speaker 2: pretty tall, which I yeah, Uh, it's when I met him.
25:39
Speaker 2: He's I don't know, maybe he's sixty two or six three.
25:42
Speaker 2: He was at least on five to eleven. He was
25:45
Speaker 2: at least three inches tallar I am, which which I
25:47
Speaker 2: didn't expect. Uh. And he's kind of skinny. He was
25:50
Speaker 2: tall and kind of skinny, which is not. Yeah, he's
25:55
Speaker 2: taller than he appears in movies that he was very
26:00
Speaker 2: charting and and and we chatted a little bit and
26:02
Speaker 2: and uh and you know he said, uh, you know
26:08
Speaker 2: he said he said something along the lines of, you know,
26:12
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not going to vote for you. And
26:15
Speaker 2: I kind of laughed and said, well, you're not going
26:17
Speaker 2: to vote for me yet. You know, I'm suffered enough.
26:20
Speaker 2: I haven't given up on I'm convincing of that. But
26:23
Speaker 2: it was, you know, he did it in a way
26:25
Speaker 2: that was not of not just looked both Philberg and
26:29
Speaker 2: Hanks or democrats. They're very vocal Democrats. But you know
26:32
Speaker 2: that's we were not there talking politics that day where
26:35
Speaker 2: I mean and you look at whether it's Saving Private
26:38
Speaker 2: Ryan or you, or or it is Band of Brothers
26:41
Speaker 2: and The Pacific, both of which are just incredible series.
26:45
Speaker 2: I've watched both of them, and they do such a
26:48
Speaker 2: powerful job of recounting World War Two, both in Europe
26:53
Speaker 2: and and and the Pacific, and and you know the
26:56
Speaker 2: heart that each of them has for telling those stories.
27:00
Speaker 2: And I was talking with Stilbert more than Hanks, but
27:04
Speaker 2: I was talking about how important it was to tell
27:07
Speaker 2: the stories of these veterans. You know, we're losing them
27:10
Speaker 2: every day, we're losing them. We're coming to the end
27:13
Speaker 2: that when we're going to have them with us and
27:15
Speaker 2: telling their stories so they're not forgotten, I think is
27:18
Speaker 2: really really really important.
27:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's vitally important. I want to go to the
27:22
Speaker 1: president's speech. Lloyd Austin spoke and then the President spoke
27:27
Speaker 1: and and I actually played some of that on my show,
27:31
Speaker 1: and I said this at the beginning. I said, I
27:33
Speaker 1: always root for the President of the United States of
27:36
Speaker 1: America on moments like this, on today's like this to
27:40
Speaker 1: have an amazing speech. And I root for the president always,
27:44
Speaker 1: my president always when it comes to national security issues,
27:50
Speaker 1: especially and when it comes to honoring our men and
27:53
Speaker 1: women in uniform. And the President gave a speech, and
27:58
Speaker 1: I was why it. With the best of intentions, I
28:03
Speaker 1: wanted to root for this speech, but there were some
28:06
Speaker 1: moments in that speech that caught me a little bit
28:10
Speaker 1: by surprise, and I wanted to know your thoughts on this.
28:14
Speaker 1: There was a couple points where Biden tried to invoke Ukraine,
28:20
Speaker 1: and he also said this, which the media even picked
28:24
Speaker 1: up on. Here's what he had to say during the
28:27
Speaker 1: speech about democracy in America.
28:30
Speaker 3: Now, the question for us is in our our trial,
28:33
Speaker 3: will we do ours? We're living at a time when
28:37
Speaker 3: democracy had more risk across the world than a point
28:40
Speaker 3: since the end of World War II, since these beaches
28:44
Speaker 3: were stormed in nineteen forty four. Now we have to
28:48
Speaker 3: ask ourselves, will we stand against tyranny, against evil, against
28:53
Speaker 3: crushing brutality of the iron fist, when we stand for freedom,
28:58
Speaker 3: when we defend democracy, we stand together? My answer is yes,
29:03
Speaker 3: all we can be yes.
29:06
Speaker 1: That was an interesting point for me because he said
29:08
Speaker 1: democracy is more at risk now than at any point since
29:11
Speaker 1: World War Two. He talked about it on a domestic side,
29:14
Speaker 1: which was implying I think Donald Trump is a threat
29:17
Speaker 1: to democracy, and then he implied it with obviously Russia
29:20
Speaker 1: and Ukraine, and I wanted your reaction to that.
29:23
Speaker 2: You know, I'm going to say, this is an interesting
29:26
Speaker 2: example of having a different reaction to something when you're
29:29
Speaker 2: physically there versus watching it on TV here or watching
29:34
Speaker 2: it on Twitter. Look, I know, on the way after
29:41
Speaker 2: the speech, like looking at Twitter and people's reactions, I
29:44
Speaker 2: know people are upset that they viewed Biden as politicizing here.
29:50
Speaker 2: I got to say, it didn't feel that political being
29:53
Speaker 2: there in person, and maybe it's because frankly, you're paying
29:58
Speaker 2: attention to the veteran and the heroes you're in front of,
30:01
Speaker 2: and it's so dominated things that you know what Biden said,
30:06
Speaker 2: he barely paid attention to it, like it was not
30:10
Speaker 2: it wasn't the dominant events of the day. And you know,
30:14
Speaker 2: it was fine, he said, Okay, you know what was
30:16
Speaker 2: actually stood out much more to me than anything Biden said.
30:20
Speaker 4: Who was that was?
30:21
Speaker 2: But prone did something that was really cool, which is
30:26
Speaker 2: he awarded the French Legion of Honor too. It was
30:32
Speaker 2: about eight or ten American gis and and he, you know,
30:37
Speaker 2: he and each of them, they were almost all the wheelchairs.
30:40
Speaker 2: Each of them would stand for it, and they're teetering
30:44
Speaker 2: and they'd have someone helping them, but they wanted to
30:46
Speaker 2: stand and he would pin on their chest the French
30:49
Speaker 2: legion of Honor that I wasn't expecting, and that was
30:51
Speaker 2: just powerful. That was just like he was literally and
30:55
Speaker 2: then it was funny. Macrow would lean in and he
30:57
Speaker 2: would kiss them on both cheeks as the French way.
31:00
Speaker 2: You could kind of see these old dudes be like, hey,
31:02
Speaker 2: why is this frenchy KidSing? But you know it's your
31:07
Speaker 2: big awarded, the French legion of honor. That's a pretty
31:10
Speaker 2: damn big deal. And you think about it for someone
31:14
Speaker 2: who was nineteen and and was right there, I mean, understand,
31:18
Speaker 2: we're doing this like right next to the beaches where
31:22
Speaker 2: they saw their friends die, right next to the beaches
31:25
Speaker 2: where I'm going to have to assume that was the
31:28
Speaker 2: most hellish day they've ever experienced. There was certainly one
31:30
Speaker 2: of them, although those that continue to fight in the
31:34
Speaker 2: war there may have been others that rivaled it. But
31:39
Speaker 2: you know, you think about it, imagine being one hundred
31:42
Speaker 2: years old and the president of France thanking you and
31:45
Speaker 2: for liberating France. And pinning the legion of honor on
31:50
Speaker 2: your chest. It was I look, most of us had
31:53
Speaker 2: tears in our eyes during this.
31:55
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Speaker 1: for twenty percent off your first order. Anthony Blincoln came
33:21
Speaker 1: out afterwards. He did an interview from Normandy with the
33:26
Speaker 1: backdrop behind him of many of the heroes and the
33:30
Speaker 1: crosses of those tombstones of somebody that lost their lives.
33:34
Speaker 1: He had this to say, marking the eightieth anniversary of
33:38
Speaker 1: D Day, and I want to get your reaction.
33:41
Speaker 5: And joining us now from Normandy, the United States Secretary
33:45
Speaker 5: of State, Anthony Blincoln, thank you very much for joining
33:48
Speaker 5: us here on morning.
33:49
Speaker 4: Joe.
33:50
Speaker 5: What should our allies and enemies take away from the
33:55
Speaker 5: President's speech this morning in Normandy?
33:59
Speaker 6: The same result, all that the extraordinary men and women
34:03
Speaker 6: that were celebrating today showed, then he's showing now because
34:08
Speaker 6: they did what they did. We're here today and we
34:11
Speaker 6: not only have responsibility to honor what they did. But
34:14
Speaker 6: the real way to honor it is to make sure
34:16
Speaker 6: that we're good in our time, in our moment, in
34:19
Speaker 6: standing up to the challenges that we face. And one
34:21
Speaker 6: of those we see now is aggression from Russia, not
34:24
Speaker 6: only against Ukraine, but against the very principles at the
34:28
Speaker 6: heart of the international system that were put in place
34:30
Speaker 6: after World War Two to try to make sure that
34:32
Speaker 6: we didn't have another World war, that we maintained peace
34:35
Speaker 6: and security. And presidents determined to make sure we're standing
34:38
Speaker 6: up today just as they stood up eighty years ago.
34:43
Speaker 5: And the President talked about Ukraine as one of the
34:46
Speaker 5: current challenges that exemplify the fight against dark forces that
34:51
Speaker 5: never fade, and he made another, yet another commitment. He
34:57
Speaker 5: reinforced the commitment to Ukraine. And by the way, if
35:02
Speaker 5: I may, we're watching live pictures right now of President
35:06
Speaker 5: Biden and the First Lady walking through the cemetery in Normandy, France.
35:14
Speaker 5: And as we look at these pictures which really symbolize
35:18
Speaker 5: the losses eighty years ago on d Day, and talk
35:23
Speaker 5: about the losses that Ukraine is incurring right now from
35:27
Speaker 5: the same type of aggression. The President did say that
35:31
Speaker 5: the support for Ukraine would continue, that we will be
35:36
Speaker 5: there for Ukraine. How does that parallel with some of
35:42
Speaker 5: the reticents we have seen in Washington that actually delayed
35:47
Speaker 5: the much needed aid Ukraine needed to push back against
35:51
Speaker 5: Russian aggression.
35:54
Speaker 6: Well, you don't make it that age should have gotten
35:55
Speaker 6: there a long time ago. But I'm glad it's there
35:57
Speaker 6: now and it's making a difference every single day. We're
36:00
Speaker 6: pushing it out to the front lines, making sure the
36:02
Speaker 6: Ukrainians who need it against this Russian aggression have it
36:05
Speaker 6: and can use it. But you know, there's a really
36:07
Speaker 6: powerful parallel too between what we're commemorating today and what
36:11
Speaker 6: we're doing now. Back then, it wasn't just the United
36:14
Speaker 6: States here in Normandy. Twelve countries came together, one hundred
36:18
Speaker 6: and sixty thousand men coming to this beach, coming to
36:21
Speaker 6: start the final fight that ultimately, eleven months later, led
36:24
Speaker 6: to victory in World War Two.
36:26
Speaker 2: In Ukraine, we have more than.
36:27
Speaker 6: Fifty countries standing up, standing together making sure that Ukraine
36:30
Speaker 6: has what it needs to defend itself and to push
36:32
Speaker 6: back this aggression. And that's the power of our alliances.
36:35
Speaker 6: And that's the biggest difference maker we have in the world.
36:37
Speaker 6: Our adversaries are competitors. They don't have the same kind
36:40
Speaker 6: of voluntary alliances. Yeah, sometimes they course countries into helping them,
36:43
Speaker 6: or maybe they pay them off. Here we have country
36:46
Speaker 6: after country that volunteers to stand together, stand together in
36:50
Speaker 6: defensive principles that we share and no need defending. We're
36:54
Speaker 6: seeing that in Ukraine. We saw that eighty years ago
36:56
Speaker 6: here in Normandy.
36:59
Speaker 1: You listen to that. It was very clear that NBC
37:02
Speaker 1: was wanting to make that and and B. Lincoln wanted
37:05
Speaker 1: to make that connection. And this deals with the reality
37:08
Speaker 1: of Foreign policy Center. He said, it is exact quote,
37:11
Speaker 1: there's a really powerful parallel between D Day and the
37:14
Speaker 1: Ukraine War.
37:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, there's no. That's Look, this White House does
37:24
Speaker 2: all politics all the time. It's what they do. They spin, spin, spin,
37:30
Speaker 2: and the two are fundamentally different. You know. I wish
37:37
Speaker 2: they would treat a solemn commemoration like this for what
37:41
Speaker 2: it is, a solemn commemoration, and not treated as another
37:45
Speaker 2: day in politics. Now, I will say President Zolensky was there,
37:50
Speaker 2: He was at the events, and so that did add
37:54
Speaker 2: some of the focus to it. And actually, I think
37:56
Speaker 2: tomorrow we're maybe sitting down a meeting with President's Elynky
38:00
Speaker 2: and listen, I agree that we want Russia to loose,
38:04
Speaker 2: that Russia is our enemy. Now, Vladimir Putin is not
38:07
Speaker 2: Adolf Hitler. He's our enemy, but he doesn't have concentration
38:12
Speaker 2: cancer where he's murdering six million people right now. He
38:17
Speaker 2: is our enemy and he does not wish us well.
38:21
Speaker 2: And so I think Vladimir Putin is a KG because
38:25
Speaker 2: it's an America's interest for Russia to lose. But and
38:30
Speaker 2: we've talked about this at great length on the pods,
38:33
Speaker 2: it is Joe Biden's fault and Tony Lincoln's fault. The
38:37
Speaker 2: Ukraine War happened in the first place. Joe Biden gave
38:41
Speaker 2: multi billion dollar gifts, says Vladimir Putin when he weighs
38:45
Speaker 2: sanctions on the North String two pipeline sanctions that I authored.
38:49
Speaker 2: I wrote the legislation, wrote them into law, and Putin
38:53
Speaker 2: stopped building that pipeline the day President Trump signed my
38:57
Speaker 2: sanctioned legislation in the law. If Biden had not weighed
39:01
Speaker 2: those sanctions, the war in Ukraine would not have happened.
39:04
Speaker 2: If Donald Trump were still in the White House. The
39:07
Speaker 2: war in Ukraine would not have happened. It's Joe Biden's
39:10
Speaker 2: weakness that caused the war in Ukraine. And by the way,
39:16
Speaker 2: as much as Biden and Blincoln want to see themselves
39:18
Speaker 2: as Churchill and Sdr, if there isn't, If there is
39:21
Speaker 2: a World War two analogy, then Biden is Neville Chamberlain.
39:27
Speaker 2: He is the one who is weak. He is the appeaser.
39:30
Speaker 2: He is the one who gave billions to Russia. He
39:32
Speaker 2: is the one who gives billions to Iran. He's the
39:35
Speaker 2: one that constantly shows weakness to our enemies, which is
39:40
Speaker 2: why we went from peace and prosperity what he inherited
39:44
Speaker 2: three and a half years ago, to two simultaneous wars
39:47
Speaker 2: playing out across the face of the globe. And look,
39:51
Speaker 2: I'm glad. Biden says he stands for freedom against tyranny.
39:56
Speaker 2: He can't seem to figure that out in Israel because
39:59
Speaker 2: he blocking weapons going to Israel and at the same
40:03
Speaker 2: time blowing money to a ran that goes to Hamas.
40:07
Speaker 2: And so when it comes to freedom and tyranny, he
40:11
Speaker 2: manages to be on the wrong side of that an
40:13
Speaker 2: awful lot.
40:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt about it. I'm really thankful that you
40:18
Speaker 1: got to be there and we got to talk about
40:20
Speaker 1: this and honor our our, our amazing brave men who
40:26
Speaker 1: went and fought, and the women that were involved as well.
40:30
Speaker 2: By the way, you know who I met. I met
40:32
Speaker 2: the original.
40:33
Speaker 1: Rosie the Riveter No way, no way.
40:37
Speaker 2: That was really cool. She she's like one hundred years old,
40:41
Speaker 2: but she was the original Rosie the Riveter in in
40:44
Speaker 2: in those ads, you know, drumming up support for the military,
40:48
Speaker 2: and that was very cool.
40:50
Speaker 1: That's incredible. Well, what what a trip.
40:53
Speaker 4: You know.
40:54
Speaker 1: My first question on the next pod is going to
40:56
Speaker 1: be about your meeting with with Ukraine's Zelenski, So I'm
41:00
Speaker 1: giving your heads up. That's what everybody listening is going
41:02
Speaker 1: to be like, how did that go and what was said?
41:05
Speaker 1: So I have a feeling we'll have that for you
41:06
Speaker 1: coming up on the next pod. I'm glad, what a
41:10
Speaker 1: great day in history, What an amazing day to remember
41:14
Speaker 1: and to honor those and I really am glad that
41:17
Speaker 1: we got to talk to you about it live from France.
41:20
Speaker 1: It's incredible.
41:21
Speaker 2: I want to close out with with actually a really
41:24
Speaker 2: cool thing. So at the International Ceremony, they had the
41:29
Speaker 2: International Ceremony of it, and there was a lot of
41:34
Speaker 2: a lot of music. They had young people singing, but
41:38
Speaker 2: that they had a military choir singing gory, gory, what
41:44
Speaker 2: a hell of a way to die, which is the
41:46
Speaker 2: formal name of it is Blood on the Risers, which
41:49
Speaker 2: is the America song by American paratroopers, and it's look,
41:53
Speaker 2: it's a gory song that they sung about what was happening.
41:56
Speaker 2: And it was amazing singing and singing it. So I
41:59
Speaker 2: want to close it by playing I just videoed on
42:03
Speaker 2: my iPhone the last two stanzas of it, and I
42:06
Speaker 2: want to close the pod by playing that because I
42:10
Speaker 2: got to say, in some ways it was dark, but
42:12
Speaker 2: in some ways it was beautiful. These are nineteen year
42:16
Speaker 2: old boys singing that they know they may be about
42:18
Speaker 2: to die, but they're going willingly into it. And so
42:22
Speaker 2: let's close. You know, Ben's wright, Subscribe to the pod,
42:26
Speaker 2: give us a five star review, sent it to all
42:28
Speaker 2: your friends. All that's true, But listen to this and
42:32
Speaker 2: just think about this is a military band, military choir
42:36
Speaker 2: in France singing this. But imagine the nineteen year old
42:41
Speaker 2: gis getting ready to get on the plane and knowing
42:45
Speaker 2: that they're going to be jumping out really close to
42:48
Speaker 2: the ground with massive machine gun fire, and they may
42:53
Speaker 2: not live another hour. And knowing what they were facing,
42:59
Speaker 2: they'd they get it with with eyes opened and in
43:03
Speaker 2: a heart full of love for America?
43:06
Speaker 7: Is everybody had to try?
43:08
Speaker 4: A sad looking out o here of Favid answer yes, and.
43:12
Speaker 7: And the story he tatory, I see us, It's time
43:17
Speaker 7: decline and hook.
43:18
Speaker 4: And he had cology. Oh holy, what the hell?
43:25
Speaker 2: A way to die?
43:27
Speaker 4: Gory ory one a hell the way to die? Carry on,
43:33
Speaker 4: hell the way to die. He hates COLOGI, No, it's lone,
43:41
Speaker 4: be found in lone.
43:43
Speaker 7: You waited, follow the shot, you sl you have the cold,
43:49
Speaker 7: you have the awful troll, the sit THRONI his missleves till.
43:56
Speaker 4: Oh rot trod.
43:58
Speaker 7: Is that.
44:01
Speaker 4: Cos O recall me? Will recalled re water the light die,
44:18
Speaker 4: Oh recalled Rene. He had cons