Journalists were surprised to learn Thursday, on the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, that many of the American veterans of that historic battle support President Donald Trump.

The common theme in the media was that Trump is challenging the transatlantic alliances that were forged during the march to victory in the Second World War.

USA Today, for example, published a story on the eve of the commemoration that declared: “[W]hile the ceremony will honor the sacrifices made on June 6, 1944, some fear Trump’s ‘America First’ presidency and the international drama he has carried with him as he begins his third trip to France will complicate the hallowed observance.”

Whatever “some fear[ed]” was not shared widely among veterans of D-Day, as France24 discovered. In a story titled, “Trump the transatlantic nightmare? Not for these D-Day vets,” the news agency documented the reasons many of the veterans who traveled to Normandy for the commemoration support President Trump, including his commitment to American strength, his policies for veterans, and his no-nonsense problem-solving approach.

France24 reported:

Trump was given a warm welcome by the veterans as he arrived for the 75th anniversary ceremony with French President Emmanuel Macron. … [T]hey praise a president who they seeing as doing what it takes to get results on the home front. But perhaps most importantly, they cite the Trump administration’s push to let millions of vets facing long waits at state-run facilities seek private care instead — paid for by the government. … Trump’s uncompromising stances get traction in particular with the generation for whom duty to country meant braving a hail of Nazi bullets on the Normandy coast.

Read the full France24 article here.

Trump’s speech at the D-Day commemoration also received unusually high marks from American Journalists present. CNN’s Jim Acosta, among others, said: “No matter what I think about the current President of the United States, he said the right thing at Normandy.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.