: Kilmeade remembers D-Day 80 years later

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Full terms at mintmobile.com. But first things first, it's been 80 years since D-Day. And for people who don't understand, just picture this. Hitler's Germany, Nazi Germany was dominating the European continent. It had the UK, United Kingdom, Great Britain on the ropes, threatening an invasion any day. Somehow, some way they had to get the US involved. We were not budging. But then after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, we were in. We not only declared war on Japan, we declared war on Germany.

We joined the Allies, but now the hard part, getting in to Europe. We had to have a massive invasion, had to be led and scripted by General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Omar Bradley. And they would do it. Then they picked June 5th for the day, but it would be the weather was too bad, too rough. They couldn't get ashore. They couldn't storm those five separate beaches. On June 6 was the day and they did. Thousands would lose their lives. More Germans, though, would lose theirs.

As paratroopers got behind enemy lines, they'd push their way through. And in the matter of three months, Paris would be liberated. There was a very emotional moving ceremony there. The president was there.

Macron obviously was the host. You saw Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and countless veterans who are in their late 90s, early 100s, where they are just about just over 100. They got awards, flyovers. It's really special. Here's a little of Joe Biden's speech, which is pretty strong.

Cut one from the sea and sky. Nearly 160,000 allied troops descended on Normandy. Many state the obvious never came home. Many survived that longest day, kept on fighting for months until victory was finally won. And a few. A notable band of brothers are here with us today.

Every soldier who stormed the beach, who dropped by parachute or landed by glider, every sailor who manned the thousands of ships and landing craft, every aviator who destroyed German controlled airfields, bridges and railroads, all all were backed by other brave Americans. Keep in mind, too, the president did fine in his speech and he also used references, and I know some people aren't happy with it. I have no problem with it, to the threat today of Vladimir Putin, who, by the way, for a brief period of time was invited to this speech.

I mean, can you believe it? The Soviet Union, yes, they were part of allies. Stalin and his communist aggressive regime that dominated Eastern Europe and dropped an iron curtain at Winston Churchill would name it and hold on to it. And he'd hold on to half of Germany for decades. But Vladimir Putin, when it was with Yeltsin, we tried to put him into the family of nations. He wants to know part of it.

And now he's the greatest threat. People have a problem that the president later referenced to Vladimir Putin and the aggression that exists today. I do think it was OK and I do see the invasion of Ukraine as part of that. People are riding me saying they were offended by it or don't agree with me. And that's fine.

You don't have to agree with everything I say. But for once, I fully understand that they took part of Georgia. They'll probably take you. They want to take all Ukraine. And there's huge pushback. And they've lost about 200 to 300,000 soldiers in the meantime. But they're doubling, tripling down because that leadership doesn't care about their people.

Hopefully the Russian families do. But on this day, it's just enormous, the success and what the stakes were in that day. People just had six, eight weeks of training and they were back and they were all of a sudden in the fight. These were farmers. These were electricians.

These were students lying about their age in order to fight. A big reflection of would we be willing to rally like that again today. But what was it like then? What was it like for FDR and General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who's commander of the Allied Forces? Here's Eisenhower on his speech June 6, 1944, a man that wrote a speech for if we did not have a successful invasion and if we did, he had both ready to go, both taking responsibility while giving credit to others if we were to win.

And we would. It's hard to lose thousands of people and say we won, but we did. General Eisenhower. Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force, you are about to embark upon the great crusade toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe and security for ourselves in a free world. Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.

How great is that? Number one, well delivered. Number two, a sense of power and the gravity of the moment. And that is the message.

And, you know, there's this famous thing. I think one of the good movies that was really surprised, Tom Selleck played Dwight D. Eisenhower. And Eisenhower would walk up to these soldiers before the invasion and basically ask him, are you ready?

You ready to go? Knowing that probably 80 percent of them could lose their lives. The people they was going up to, he was sending into battle, technically sending into death, to their death and the families and the sorrow from behind.

They would be leaving behind. So just tremendous. The leadership who and Eisenhower was an example, too, of a general that emerged during the war. And for a while, FDR was not happy with the performance of his soldiers, kept rotating out generals until he got to Bradley, till he got to Patton, till he got to Eisenhower, who had to get the respect of the other generals along the way because jealousy was very much a part of it. As the president of the United States, FDR had the world on his shoulders. He took over a country that was suffering from depression. He wanted to bring it out through federal programs, the so-called New Deal, controversial more today than then. But he had no choice. He had to put money into the system and put people back to work. And then he wanted us to get into this war, not because he wanted people to die or he was bloodthirsty, because he saw the free world at stake.

But it wasn't until the bombing of Pearl Harbor where the anti-war activists finally went into the minority. Here is FDR. And this is this is the longer version, the second to last one, Eric, on the sheet. So let's listen. Almighty God, our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true. Give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard, for the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces, success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again. And we know that by thy grace and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph. It's pretty cool to go back in that time and understand what was at stake.

I mean, it's really pure. I mean, World War Two, the reason why there's so many movies on it is from Saving Private Ryan to the actual documentaries that we see on a regular basis, they're always on, is because it was so obvious good and evil. No one was like, fascism, it's had some upside.

You know, it was Hitler, he seems like a good guy, I think he's just misunderstood. No, Mussolini, the first fascist, Hitler would follow in his wake, and we saw the aggressive Japan trying to take over the Pacific. We knew we had to do, we got bombed, just really, people want to debate you, we hit back. They've taken over Europe, put it this way, we watched as the Nazis went through France and marched through Paris and took over our first ally, and we still didn't get in the war.

But look at this timeline. You saw what happened on June 6th, that's the D-Day invasion. June 11th, beachheads firmly secured, 326,000 Allied troops have crossed with more than 100,000 tons of military equipment coming right up the back. Now that's June. August 25th, 1944, Paris liberated.

Think about the great work there. The mighty German machine, nothing but success. Finally, they were on their heels, finally being pushed back by the Soviets, who had lost millions trying to fend off the invasion. And then by 1945, April 30th, six months later, Hitler committed suicide in his bunker. The Soviets would hold on to him and find him, and there was all types of mysteries about what happened, but his bunker, I just saw some video yesterday of Winston Churchill walking through the bunker that Hitler committed suicide in. For the longest time, the Soviets said, no, no one's going to get in there.

It led to a lot of so-called conspiracy theories. Germany would surrender May 8th, 1945, and then that was just one half of the war. Now it's time to go finish off Japan. So it's unbelievable what was at stake. It's unbelievable how well we fought, and it's very true. I was just at Fort Bragg, which is now Fort Liberty, and the 101st and 82nd Airborne were part of the invasion, and they were going over to commemorate it. And what they were telling me, and I think I might have mentioned on the show before, is that the French are, as much as we are prideful of the way we fought, the French are in awe.

You're talking about Japanese, many of which have passed on. Still, they've passed on the message that they remembered what Nazi occupation was like. They knew about the French resistance on the outside led by Charles de Gaulle, the willingness to push back in, combine with allies, and get your country back. They knew what that was like. And for the Americans, along with the UK, Canadians, and allied forces to take those five beaches, go through Normandy, and get back to France, and take the country back, they still remember it, and they go out of their way. They say there are American flags everywhere, and it's really moving. Because, you know, French for the longest time likes to be critical, look down their nose at us. No pun intended, they absolutely do, in many respects. Macron on down.

It says all types of things. Remember, they pulled their ambassador when President Biden decided he was going to sell nuclear submarines to Australia, and up until the end of the 19th century, when President Biden decided he was going to sell submarines to Australia, and upend the French deal that would stop them from getting millions of dollars, he pulled their ambassador. Remember the disparaging things he said about Donald Trump. I'm talking about Macron. And evidently he tells President Biden, please don't let Donald Trump win. But when it comes to D-Day, when it comes to World War II, all bets are off. Everybody's in, they know who the good guys are. And the question is, we had Jay Johnson, former Homeland Security Secretary for Barack Obama, could you ever unify again like that for a cause?

I say yes. But the one thing is different. The curriculum back then had America as an exceptional nation, emerging power, the great pride, the great melting pot where immigrants choose to come here and want to be a part of our country.

And now we seem to be going out of a way to condemn our country, even though in so many ways we've never been better, we have never been greater. The world of business moves fast. Stay on top of it with the Fox Business Rundown. Listen to the Fox Business Rundown every Monday and Friday at FoxBusinessPodcasts.com or wherever you download your favorite podcasts. Listen to the show ad free on Fox News Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music with your prime membership or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.