In an interview this weekend with CBS, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) referred to D-Day — meaning the Allies’ incursion into Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II — as a “failure.”
The remarks were a surprising aside amid a broader discussion of the current situation around Russian leader Vladimir Putin. “If you spent 15 minutes studying Putin and what he wants, he wants to recreate the Russian Empire,” Graham said Sunday on the air. “He’s not going to stop in Ukraine. We celebrated the 80th anniversary of D-Day. It was a failure. It was the unnecessary war, described by Winston Churchill. We had a dozen chances to stop Hitler.” He then got back into the main part of his contentions about Putin’s overarching threats.
“I thought this was a misinterpretation. It isn’t. Because his Republican predecessors encouraged Hitler the way he encourages Trump, @LindseyGrahamSC called D-Day a “failure,”” said opinion journalist Keith Olbermann on X, formerly called Twitter. “For this alone he should resign.”
Graham was trying to push back at the time on the expressed stance of Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) regarding the current war in Ukraine launched by Russian forces. Tuberville has spoken defensively around Putin, claiming in a recent interview that the Russian leader just wanted to avoid supposedly substantive military threats to his country. It’s unclear there’s any kind of evidence, anywhere, of any Western country or alliance planning out any kind of offensive, though. President Joe Biden has been unequivocal about the U.S.’ stance.
Graham and Tuberville both, though, are known as ardent Trump supporters, and Trump has spoken dubiously about Putin as well, describing him as supposedly “savvy.” It’s a trend with Trump. Though he at times morally distances himself from the substance of what they’re doing, he repeatedly props up such figures while discussing the strategic front.
