Live from the White House on Memorial Day, President Trump delivers remarks at Arlington National Military Cemetery, lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, and then leaves for his place in Northern Virginia. President Trump also delivers a speech at the West Point Commemoration Ceremony.
00:09:03.280We don't honor those of us who served in the military.
00:09:07.560That's our great honor to be able to do it.
00:09:09.260Today is a day for the honored dead, the war dead of our nation.
00:09:15.060Patrick K. O'Donnell, you've done more than anybody to really lay this out.
00:09:19.940Your book, you really go back to the very first of the unknowns, and you do the entire – how we did it in World War I.
00:09:26.220I want to ask you, though, about the last one, and particularly the Korean War.
00:09:30.320Of all the wars we fought and all the bloody conflicts we fought, Korea is called the Forgotten War.
00:09:35.380And yet it was – the sacrifice of American troops in Korea was absolutely incredible.
00:09:42.140And of course, a couple of years after the war, when it was still seared into the memories of the American people,
00:09:47.600President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon had this incredibly moving ceremony with, I don't know, millions of people, hundreds of thousands of people.
00:09:56.520They came out on Memorial Day, 30 May 1958, in searing heat, and people were there for the entire thing and just to commemorate the last of the unknown.
00:10:39.540Pertie, and he single-handedly handed the radio off to one of his men and single-handedly charged a bunker with just a grenade in his M1 carbine.
00:10:49.600Took out the bunker, then went after a trench line.
00:10:52.900I'll never forget his – he told me how, you know, very solemnly how he killed many, many people that day.
00:10:59.780And then proceeded, as he was wounded, to carry off men that were in that attack as well, or near the attack, bringing them to safety and receiving the Medal of Honor.
00:11:13.880And just, you know, really an incredible man that I'll never forget.
00:11:18.660And, you know, I mean, this guy was so tough. He talked about, he told me about some of the home invasions that occurred, that he was able to also single-handedly take care of business.
00:11:32.880That's how tough this guy was, even in his 70s and 80s. Just a really remarkable man.
00:11:40.540Yeah, I remember the Clint Eastwood film was about a Korean War.
00:11:43.100Korea's, they call it the Forgotten War, but it's not forgotten to veterans. It's not forgotten to the Marine Corps or the U.S. Army that really, relatively untrained troops, because World War II was over, relatively untrained troops were sent over there and really fought the Chinese Communist Party, a red Chinese army of, I don't know, millions that swept across the Yalu River.
00:12:06.020And places like Chosin Reservoir, except there are just so many heroic. Give me a snapshot. We've got a couple of minutes.
00:12:11.940We're going to set up Steve Gruber. We're going to go to Gruber when we come back from commercial break, who actually is at Arlington, and we'll show you the crowd that's already assembled there awaiting the president and the official party.
00:12:23.620Talk to me about Korea, Chosin Reservoir. People forget the absolute agony of these troops that fought and died in Korea.
00:12:32.920I've written 14 books now, and all those books have found me, and that was particularly the case with Give Me Tomorrow.
00:12:40.920She's done a Korean War. And when I came back from Fallujah as a combat historian, I came back alone, and I was greeted by men of George Company 3-1, these Korean War vets.
00:12:53.100And they asked me who I was. I told them I was in Fallujah, and they said,
00:12:57.720Oh, you carried our battle guide on George Company and Weapons Company 3-1 in the battle.
00:13:04.420And then they said to me, Would you like a ride to the train station and have lunch with us?
00:13:08.660And then they proceeded to tell me how George Company at the Chosin Reservoir,
00:13:13.060You know, just sort of picture 30 to 40-degree below zero weather, no food, against Chinese, just hordes of Chinese soldiers.
00:13:25.080And that's what these men did. They held a hill against all odds and helped save the war.
00:13:30.360And I was immediately impressed. And the next thing I know, they're inviting me to their reunions,
00:13:35.360and I spent five years recording their stories and coming up with Give Me Tomorrow.
00:13:41.920And it really was a forgotten war. I'll never forget, I had tremendous doubt within the publishing industry
00:13:48.380whether or not even a book like this would be successful.
00:13:51.640It turned out to be one of my most successful books. It was on the Commandant's reading list at one point.
00:13:56.240But it's about, it's a band of brothers on George Company.
00:14:00.080Hang on, hang on. I want to reiterate that. We'll talk about it more when we get back.
00:14:04.320When you propose the book, which is one of the most moving books of the 14 you've written, which are all classics,
00:14:14.020the publishing industry said, hey, Korea is just not that big a deal.
00:14:17.800People don't know about it. We don't know if we can do it.
00:14:19.440Patrick, hang on. I want to get into this.
00:14:21.260Steve Gruber's at Arlington National Cemetery.
00:14:26.000President Trump will be leaving shortly.
00:14:27.880Following on his historic commencement address at the United States Military Academy at West Point,
00:14:35.480where he told these young, about to become second lieutenants,
00:14:40.240I will never put you in harm's way on a war that we're not prepared to win.
00:14:45.320What is it, 60-some years later in Korea?
00:14:48.740A team are going over on election to make sure the Chinese Communist Party does not complete a coup of South Korea.
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00:21:24.480And it's no small measure from Concord and Lexington to the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and all the context since that people have laid down their lives.
00:21:36.860And the last full measure of devotion to the UNI can sit here and listen to the Marine Corps band, to listen to the stories here in the amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery.
00:21:50.080And I don't think there's a more important place to be on Memorial Day 2025 than being here.
00:21:58.620Looking at Donald Trump for the live at Mark Sear.
00:22:01.560A little bit later, he said he'll be leaving the White House in about 20 minutes or so.
00:28:35.780I was four and a half years old on a brutally hot day in Washington with, I don't know, felt like millions of people.
00:28:42.520Talk to me about the Korean War, the sacrifice of these troops, many of them untrained.
00:28:47.780They're thrown into some of the fiercest combat that America's ever had.
00:28:51.380This is the first hot conflict of the Cold War, Steve.
00:28:56.800And it is, in many ways, the Forgotten War, where tens of thousands of Americans laid down their lives to protect freedom and to check communism, which was spreading around the globe.
00:29:09.160This is an extraordinary struggle and conflict that the men of George Company, in particular, give me tomorrow.
00:29:18.580Well, that band of brothers, they were reservists, and many of them never even knew how to properly throw a grenade.
00:29:26.760And remarkably, these were men that had never gone through, many of them had never gone through boot camp itself.
00:29:32.480And it would be on the ships in 1950, in the summer of 1950, that they would be trained by the great NCOs that were part of George Company, men that fought along the Matanakau River at Guadalcanal and Peleliu, men like Rocco Zulu, who trained these men aboard ships as they were going to Korea.
00:29:52.860And they were on the first wave at Blue Beach at Inchang, where Korea was reduced in 1950, in the summer of 1950, going into the fall to a small perimeter around Pusan, which was nearly overrun.
00:30:09.220And it was at Inchang that MacArthur makes the Great Gamble, and it's this flanking maneuver where they land near Seoul, and they surprise the enemy.
00:30:19.520You know, and everything had to go perfectly right because the tides were so, you know, at such a point where only a specific day or two, the landing would actually be successful.
00:30:32.280And that's one of the reasons why it was so successful is because of the unexpected nature of it.
00:30:37.460And MacArthur timed that perfectly and also had to convince the general staff that it was possible.
00:30:43.760And it would be the men of George Company and many others.
00:34:01.840And then they're involved in Seoul, Korea, and the fighting there.
00:34:05.340George Company, you know, takes the brunt of a Chinese or I should say North Korean.
00:34:13.200At this time it would be a North Korean counterattack, which involved several self-propelled guns and T-34-85 tanks at Maupal Boulevard, which is in the heart of Seoul.
00:34:23.920And I had one great story by John Kerry, who was a lieutenant at the time, and he is literally, General MacArthur is walking down the street and in broad daylight, without any cover, walks down the street.
00:34:42.640And young Lieutenant Kerry grabs him and pulls him into the side of the building.
00:34:47.660MacArthur said, what the hell are you doing, Lieutenant?
00:34:50.040I'm trying to protect you from the bolts.
00:34:52.020And MacArthur just looks up at him and says, there's not a bullet in the world that can kill me.
00:34:56.940That's kind of how bold this man was, beginning with, you know, prior to the World War I, where he was involved in Mexico.
00:35:05.500And in World War I, he had just sort of this era of invulnerability.
00:35:09.280He was awarded, people realize, forget that, MacArthur was awarded five silver stars for gallantry in combat in World War I.
00:35:22.460His father having won the Congressional, being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in the Civil War.
00:35:36.280We've had the parade of flags here just a moment ago.
00:35:39.620Now, I learned something, as I always do on these events.
00:35:43.140I learned that when President Trump steps foot on the cemetery grounds, the cannons will set off.
00:35:49.600And so you will know when the Commander-in-Chief is at Arlington because the cannons will be touched off and we'll know that he's here.
00:35:56.140From that point, he'll go lay the wreath, and it'll take only a few minutes, and he'll be here to give remarks now.
00:36:01.580So we're expecting him to leave the White House in the next few minutes, make his way to Arlington.
00:36:07.220We'll hear the cannons fire, and then we'll know the Commander-in-Chief, the 45th and 47th President of the East United States will be on the grounds, the safety ground.
00:36:17.740Steve, that's the most searing memory I have from 1958 is the howitzers.
00:36:26.760I think they were down outside the Capitol, but when the remains of the unknown from the Korean War went with an honor guard,
00:36:34.340the howitzers, I believe, fired the entire time until the official party with the body, with the remains,
00:36:43.160and General Eisenhower and Richard Nixon actually got to Arlington.
00:49:58.180And that's the comparison I make when I was a young man seeing that horrible burned out failure of that rescue attempt in the desert by Jimmy Carter.
00:50:49.420The first motorcade came in with all the military folks, the D.C. police, the United States Park police, and everyone here behind the amphitheater.
00:51:02.860I can see the gate where they're letting in the guests today.
00:51:06.500They brought it to a stop there for about 15 minutes.
00:51:08.900Now I see they're flowing through again.
00:51:10.900The place is packed, standing room only, and they're still bringing more people in, which is incredible.
00:51:15.100But I can't help but affect what you said there, Steve.
00:51:20.060I mean, we need to be the single strongest nation on earth so that we don't have to fight, so we don't have to open up a section 61 and 62.
00:51:30.480You know, Steve, what Patrick K. O'Donnell said about people like MacArthur.
00:51:39.120I mean, Trump's trying to find those MacArthur's, those patents.
00:51:42.020He wants American exceptionalism on the battlefield.
00:51:45.120He wants American exceptionalism in defense so that we're never crossed.
00:51:48.840My personal experience, I was a young naval officer on the carrier battle group, two of them, Gonzo Station and Camel Station, that did the workup for that raid.
00:52:01.820And I can tell you as a junior officer, we would sit there and go, this thing is not pulled together tight.
00:52:07.900I mean, they didn't have enough helicopter.
00:52:56.500Look, my kid brother, as a Navy pilot, was with the raid on Gaddafi under Reagan.
00:53:02.060And that was a totally different deal.
00:53:03.760That was highly competent, took care of it, and sent Gaddafi to the desert for a couple of decades and got his mind right about, you know, about radical jihad.
00:54:41.940As the engine room reminds me, it was Abbey Gate that really, of course, here at the war room, we were – from the beginning, not pro-Biden.
00:54:50.400But Abbey Gate, I think, woke middle-class America and people who are independents or Democrats who were not Trump people to say, wow, what is going on here?
00:55:02.380When you see that – when you see the – what, the C-130s and the C-5s going down the runways with people hanging onto the wings.
00:55:10.540It looked worse than Vietnam in 1975, and that's the thing with our Vietnam veterans was 57,000 KIAs, and we don't have anyone – we don't have anyone that is honored in the tomb of the unknown because of DNA technology that it's very difficult today to not be identified, which is positive for the families, obviously.
00:55:39.560The – but you look at the debacle in Vietnam and the heroism.
00:55:44.700In these wars that are forgotten, like in Korea or Vietnam, which people want to look away from, or even today in the beginning of the Iraq and Afghanistan war, those 20 years, the heroism of these young people is extraordinary.
00:56:03.020It goes back to – it goes back to Ticonderoga.
00:56:07.320Right now we're in the middle of – we've had the 250th anniversary of Lexington and Concord just a couple weeks ago.
00:56:12.740We had the 250th anniversary of Ticonderoga.
00:56:16.100Right now in American history, they're dragging the guns of Ticonderoga to Boston for the defense of Boston.
00:56:23.860We're about to have one of the most heroic engagements of the American military at Bunker Hill or at Breeds Hill coming up with the guns of Ticonderoga.
00:56:35.160It's just – it's absolutely extraordinary all the way back to the founding of this republic and even before in the French and Indian wars, the American martial spirit.
00:56:44.880And that's – people are prepared to sacrifice, but they want to make sure there's a purpose to the sacrifice and competence.
00:56:51.580And that's what President Trump committed on Saturday.
00:57:36.760But it's also about the proper military strategy.
00:57:40.100I mean, General Washington, in my view, is one of the greatest military commanders because he's able to change course of a major strategy midstream during the war multiple times.
00:57:53.820You know, he has a Fabian strategy, and then he, you know, fades out.
00:57:58.340He doesn't attack a superior army, uses a regular warfare properly.
00:58:03.420And then, you know, as the war ends, or as it comes – you know, this is an eight-year war.
00:58:10.920He's able to hold things together internally.
00:58:13.320He's able to manage allies, which is an incredibly, you know, important thing.
00:58:19.160And you don't see that in a commander-in-chief until Black Jack Pershing in World War I where he has to manage allies as well.
00:58:27.140So he has an incredible role that he plays in really forging the American way of war.
00:58:34.760And so much of our theory of war comes from the American Revolution.
00:58:40.280I had family members at Lexington and Concord that, you know, it spans all the way back – that DNA spans all the way back to the American Revolutionary War.
00:58:50.300You know, Steve Gruber put us – I guess I would say the president's left, I think, the White House.
00:58:56.800He's en route to Arlington National Cemetery.
00:59:01.040There's a group of American citizens of really families of the fallen and also veterans of our current war and particularly the greatest generation.
00:59:40.160I mean, the two gentlemen I met from World War II, one that was, you know, putting the ships toward the shores of Normandy, he's 98 years old.
00:59:48.960The other gentleman that's gone in North Africa and then on to France, 97 years old.
00:59:53.900Our access to their memories, to their experiences, fading quickly.
01:00:54.280When I see the students of North Carolina and Alabama tearing down other flags and putting the American flag up and defending the flagpole with honor.
01:03:17.800And the Section 60 there, the new section for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, was really near.
01:03:24.580Andrew's house was kind of on a ridge overlooking it, but it was close to Andrew's house.
01:03:28.200It's one of the things, many things that really brought him from being a liberal to really being one of America's great patriots is seeing the young families, families of young widows and children and babies that would come and not just be there for the barrels, but then come back over and over again to lay wreaths or just to be there with their loved ones.
01:03:59.080This is one of the things I think President Trump's going to get us back to of more and more of these commemorations on days.
01:04:06.400I mean, as a veteran, I 100 percent agree with what he's trying to do on Veterans Day is make it more about the ending of World War I.
01:04:13.360He's trying to get into people's memory the historical nature of the conflicts we've had and why they've been so important for the freedoms and liberty of the current generation and down through time.
01:04:33.460November the 11th, of course, the end of World War I.
01:04:36.000And, you know, reflecting what you guys have been talking about there with Patrick and so forth, the number of people that died in that conflict with America shocked the public.
01:06:16.760It would – Gruber and I are talking about this kind of – the kinetic part of the Third World War that our theory of the case has started, and President Trump is trying to stop it.
01:06:39.520You've got – it is – you're the historian.
01:06:41.860I argue that this is actually bloodier than the start of – the traditional start of the European War of 1939 to 1941 on at least the European side.
01:06:53.500I guess if you put in the Chinese side and the global part of it, it might match it.
01:06:57.720But this is as bloody a conflict as we've ever seen, sir.
01:07:01.220Yeah, the bookends of that war really – I mean it begins in 1937 with the Marco Polo Bridge incident in many ways and how China and Japan clash and tens of thousands of Chinese and Japanese troops are killed even before 1939.
01:07:25.640And I think the key here really though is economics, it's preparedness, it's bringing back supply chains, and I'm just reminded of the Cold War.
01:07:39.160And that's the importance right now is economics, and that will eventually win things.
01:07:47.820A kinetic war of World War III would be catastrophic and something that the world might not be able to sustain.
01:07:54.440Patrick, Patrick, let me toss back to the amphitheater.
01:07:57.980I think we're starting to get some activity.