Megyn just got back from a two-week vacation in France. One of the stops of the trip was Normandy, where she and her family had an opportunity to see just what United States forces faced when they stormed the beaches there some eight decades ago.
Having kept up with the news as she was away, Megyn couldn’t help but consider the state of the U.S. then compared to where we are now. On Monday’s show, Megyn reflected on the bravery of the Greatest Generation and what we can learn from them today.
Visiting Normandy
Right now, it’s the beaches of Normandy I want to talk about. That’s where we began our trip – nearly 79 years to the day from the D-Day invasion, the site of some of the greatest acts of heroism the world has ever seen. We visited Pointe du Hoc and Omaha Beach, walked amidst the enormous bomb craters still there that were created by the allied planes as they tried to provide air cover for our guys storming the beaches below.
We stood on the sands of those very beaches – and our kids drew tributes to the fallen in the sand. It was an eerie thing to stand there with them, sweetly digging in the sand, knowing the blood and treasure that had been lost on that hallowed ground.
We learned about men like James Earl Rudder, the commanding officer of 2nd Battalion 75th Rangers Regiment out of Texas. The Rangers had to climb up 100-foot ropes to the top of Pointe du Hoc while taking machine gun fire and dodging grenades from above. They lost 50 percent of their men, but they made it to the top and destroyed the German gun batteries housing the enemy fire. They helped establish a beachhead for the Allied forces, seemingly without a care for their own safety or lives. In all, around 133,000 troops from the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain landed on D-Day.
The danger was too grave to comprehend.
Finding Common Purpose
As we stood at that very spot overlooking the 100-foot cliffs that our guys scaled so bravely eight decades ago, it got me thinking about why they did it and whether that level of sacrifice would happen today. In 1984, on the fortieth anniversary of D-Day, President Ronald Reagan spoke to many of the veterans in the same spot we visited…
“Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns… Soon, one by one, the rangers pulled themselves over the top and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe…
These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc… These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent… who all knew that somethings are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for. Democracy is worth dying for because it is the most deeply admirable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny. You knew the people of your countries were behind you.
The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought – or felt in their hearts, though they couldn’t know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4a.m. In Kansas, they were kneeling on their porches and praying. In Philadelphia, they were ringing the liberty bell…”
– President Ronald Reagan, June 6, 1984
The nation came together in a common purpose. The people joined in prayer to support those on the front lines, understanding that this mission was greater than themselves. We felt similar feelings after 9/11. But that seems like a lifetime ago right now. There’s no question that our elite fighters of the American military would do what was asked of them and do it with bravery and skill. The question is whether America could unite behind any similar cause these days; whether we will ever recapture the feeling of e pluribus unum – out of many, one.
I’m worried.
Trump on Trial
Just before I left for vacation, the Democrat party saw to it that, for the first time in American history, a former president of the United States and the leading contender for the GOP nomination in the 2024 presidential contest, was indicted on 37 federal felony counts, accused of hoarding documents relating to the national defense, and then of obstructing the feds’ efforts to get them back. The indictment is troubling, there’s no doubt. But here’s the bottom line: It can’t be seen in a vacuum.
Let’s assume Trump violated the law – rather flagrantly. Should he be prosecuted? You can’t answer that without knowing the rest of the story, like all the chapters leading up to the moment the Department of Justice made a federal case out of Trump’s behavior. The Russia hoax handicapped Trump’s four years in office. Democrats (including the FBI) and the press engaged in an extended campaign to steal Trump’s first term by disparaging him daily, accusing him of treason essentially, and prosecuting the people around Trump as alleged Russian agents in a dishonest, trumped-up, politically motivated effort to undermine his entire presidency.
When all of that was officially chronicled by special counsel John Durham, the left yawned. There was no accountability, no horrified moral judgments. It was just a ‘move on.’ When the GOP-controlled house censored Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) last week for his outright lies about the intelligence he claimed to have seen in Russiagate – lies that helped mislead a nation and divide us at the core – he said he wore their contempt as a badge of honor. But Trump’s document cache? That’s supposed to really incense us.
They tried to impeach him twice. They worked, we know now, through the supposedly non-partisan FBI to suppress negative information about Joe Biden and his corrupt son, Hunter Biden, in the lead-up to the 2020 election. The CIA helped by working with the Biden campaign to corral so-called intelligence experts to assure us the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian plant.
Attorney generals like Letitia James in New York sued Trump repeatedly, trying to shut down his business and now criminal cases are being threatened in as many as four jurisdictions for payoffs to porn stars not documented properly and papers retained improperly but without any evidence of them being exposed to our enemies. You can’t say the same for Hillary Clinton’s home-brew server, which experts believe was likely accessed by the Chinese. Clinton, who also defied a federal subpoena and destroyed documents and devices while under a legal obligation to produce them, was not prosecuted. Why?
The indictment of Trump is part of a long pattern with the left, and the problem for many of us is – without defending what Trump allegedly did – that it is impossible to detach the legal case from the political one. The latter is entirely the reason for the former. It’s the reason Trump’s supporters may not approve of how he allegedly handled himself here but can’t bring themselves to really care when it comes to this election.
They know these people will do anything to get him. If it weren’t the documents, it would be something else. They will never stop. It’s hard to support zealots on a political mission who tell us ‘no one is above the law’ when targeting a Republican but make obvious exceptions when the alleged criminal is a Clinton or a Biden.
This same DOJ which has such interest in Trump’s files apparently has none in those of Joe Biden. The news emerging over the past few days on alleged influence-peddling, possible bribery, and corruption involving our current president and his son is stunning, and yet these same notable federal authorities seem to have zero appetite to even investigate this matter. Forgive us if we see the difference and decide Trump’s documents may not be a deal-breaker.
The Culture War
Let’s not forget these same leftists, who now claim to be the authorities on righteousness and moral rectitude are trying to delegitimize the U.S. Supreme Court – after failing in their push to pack it with extra justices – because it has a conservative majority. One conservative justice after another gets targeted, first as alleged rapists or sexual abusers and now as corrupt and unethical money-grubbers. Their draft opinions get leaked. Their homes get targeted. Would-be assassins show up to murder them, and the left shrugs its shoulders saying, ‘This is what democracy looks like.’
These experts in ethical standards wanted to prosecute parents for speaking out at school board meetings, they infiltrated church prayer groups during COVID and wrote openly of their desire to surveil Catholic masses. In places like California, they are literally pushing legislation to criminalize parents who object to cutting off their children’s body parts or to sterilizing them as minors if the child suffers a touch of gender confusion. You will affirm or you will be criminal. These are our moral betters.
They lie to push their ‘inclusive’ and ‘tolerant’ agendas, like forcing girls to compete against boys in sports – even when it might be dangerous, never mind unfair. Did you see the loon, Kelley Robinson, who heads up Human Rights Watch last week testifying about fairness in athletics and trying to say ‘no man could ever beat Serena Williams’ and that it’s a lie to suggest otherwise? Riley Gaines was there too and promptly shut that nonsense right down.
As president of the Human Rights Campaign, Robinson controls corporate America, so it’s a problem. She doles out the equity scores to which our money-makers have become so beholden. This group used to just support gay rights – like same sex couple insurance benefits, which makes sense. Now, it wants to demonize anyone who won’t say ‘she’ about a man prancing around the office with a beard and a bulge in his pants.
Their lies about COVID also caused immense harm. Children were kept out of schools and forced to get a vaccine they did not need, which, in far too many cases, scarred their hearts and impaired their cardiac hearts. Adult vaccine injuries were ignored or even mocked and job losses were written off as a moral necessity.
When the leftist party line on how the virus started – they said it was from an animal at a Chinese wet market – got questioned, they once again tried to shut down all debate. Now that the evidence has become undeniable, they ignore it or publish headlines claiming it will never be clear. But remember folks, they’re the ones about accountability.
Where We Stand Today
So no, at the moment, we are nowhere close to being unified. We are at each other’s throats, and for good reason. We love our country – at least some of us do. But to wrap arms around this radical left and say, ‘We’re all on the same team’ is to deny reality. These people want to hurt our children and break up our families. They weaponize our legal system to hurt their enemies. They undermine any institution that won’t push their agenda, harm to America be damned.
The good news is, the American people are not falling for it: Some 80 percent of Democrats say that they want to make Biden fight to become the Democratic nominee. They want him to debate his more sensible opponents like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Trump, on the indictment front, has lost approximately zero support since the political hit job of an indictment was handed down.
The leftist social agenda needs only to be exposed to be eventually ruined. Bud Light’s sales are down lower than ever this past week, Catholics turned out in droves at the Dodgers’ celebration of the drag queen nun-bashers, and the trans psycho who flashed his fake breasts at a White House event last week was too much even for Team Biden, which condemned him for his disgusting behavior. Because they were actually offended? God no! Because Americans are sick of this s–t.
We’re in a different kind of battle for America right now. It’s for the soul of this country. Let’s not kid ourselves – it doesn’t require the kind of courage it took to storm the beaches of Normandy. But it does require some measure of courage. It requires us to stand up and not be cowed into saying what we know is not true, like a man can become a woman; like COVID lockdowns were worth it; like Trump belongs in jail; like Biden is above reproach.
These truths may not unify us in the short-term, but they are required long-term if we want to find our way back to the America that once prayed together and fought together; the one that stormed the beaches for love of country; the one that stared fascism in the face and, in response, rang the Liberty Bell.
You can check out part one of Megyn’s Talking Points memo by tuning in to episode 575 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.