The 80th Anniversary of the D-Day invasion included many reenactment jumps, but none as visually captivating as the one in Mont St. Michel. A jump that featured multiple sorties of C-47s and some of America’s most important leaders donning the battle uniform of our airborne predecessors. 

Included in this stick was Florida Congressman and fellow Green Beret Mike Waltz. After a quick exit and soft landing, Congressman Waltz spent some time with Fran Racioppi on the drop zone to talk D-Day, World Order and the current state of Congress. 

With Mont-Saint Michel in the background, and jumpers still falling, they dug into our national security challenges in the Middle East, Ukraine and China; and how immigration policy is rapidly becoming the decisive issue. They also unpacked the need for professionalism in Congress, how polarization is affecting getting things done and what we can expect from our political leaders as we gear up for an election cycle that looks more like a night combat jump with high winds and a small drop zone. 

Take a listen, watch, or read our conversation from one of the most surreal spots on the globe then head over to our YouTube channel to as we share the lineage of America’s first Special Forces in the Jedburgh Media Channel’s first documentary, Unknown Heroes, Behind Enemy Lines at D-Day, the story of Operation Jedburgh.   

Highlights:

• 0:00 Introduction
• 02:10 Jumping into Mont St. Michel
• 5:20 What is NATO’s role in global conflict?
• 9:35 Can America mobilize a whole of society approach?
• 12:34 Why is DOD calling for a reduction in Special Forces?
• 14:14 Why can’t we just close the border? 
• 17:01 What can we expect during the upcoming election cycle?

Quotes: 

•  “Vintage birds. Vintage uniforms. But the parachutes are new Mr. Speaker.” (2:53)
• “We can’t keep asking the American taxpayer to dig deeper and deeper into their pocket while the European taxpayer isn’t being asked to do the same thing.” (7:09)
• “We should be flooding the world with cleaner, cheaper American oil and gas.” (8:00)
• “What I want is that every time Chairman Xi gets out of bed and looks across the Taiwan Strait he says ‘ah…they're still too tough, we’re not ready.’" (10:56)
• “The more the Chinese Communist Party are looking over their shoulder, the less they’re looking across the Pacific.” (12:25)
• “Those support men and women for the Special Operations community keep us out of wars. Those are the left of bang.” (13:55)
• “The cartels are behind all of this…We know from Plan Colombia how to take down cartels.” (16:04)
• "The world is a calm place when America is strong.” (18:35)