Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing backlash for using a speech commemorating D-Day to criticize migration in Europe.

While in France to mark the 82nd anniversary of the Normandy landings on Saturday, Hegseth drew a link between Allied forces’ deployment to take down Nazis during World War II and migrants moving to the continent.

“Today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies,” he said. “Beaches in Spain and Italy and Greece and Bulgaria. Boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Or is it too late? I pray not, and I believe not.”

On ABC’s “This Week” Sunday, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) characterized the remarks as “inappropriate” and “out of place” at an event meant to honor veterans of the operation, in which 2,500 Americans died.

“I think it should have been about their sacrifice, their service to their country, and what they did to protect the free world at a time of great peril against Nazi Germany,” McCaul said. “That should’ve been the message. It always has been in the past. And quite frankly, I thought it was inappropriate.”

English historian Simon Schama was more direct in his denouncement, per The Guardian. He described Hegseth’s comments as a “special kind of loathsomeness: a blend of historical deafness, grotesque stupidity and comically ludicrous self-importance.”

“As if the little people’s rage against immigration somehow is superior to the war against the 3rd Reich and entitles this comic book nobody to lecture the actual heroes,” Schama said.

Even before the remarks, some residents of Colleville-sur-Mer, France, wanted Hegseth to know he was not welcome. The local association, Langrune en commun, called for his appearance to be canceled and knocked him for his “warlike statements,” “anti-European remarks” and “American supremacist pronouncements,” according to France24.

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