US historian Victor Davis Hanson has criticised ex-Fox News host Darryl Cooper after he branded Winston Churchill the “chief villain of the Second World War”.
Cooper said Churchill was guilty of “rank terrorism” during a two-hour interview with Tucker Carlson earlier this month.
Speaking on GBN America, Davis Hanson explained to Steve Edginton why Churchill should be regarded as a hero, and you can watch the full interview above.
“The great contribution of Churchill in World War Two was threefold”, he said.
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“Number one, he was a voice in the wilderness during the Stanley Baldwin administration and Neville Chamberlain.
“In other words - he was arguing for the hurricane fighter. He was arguing for the updated super marine. He was arguing to keep building up the fleet.
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Steve Edginton spoke to Victor Davis Hanson on GB News
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“Number two, when the Germans invaded France, he had the unfortunate experience of being prime minister during one of the worst days of World War Two.
“So for the first three weeks, it was nothing but bad news. France collapsed, and there was this panic in Britain because they looked at what is now the EU and the NATO combined under being under the control directly from Germany or allied with it.
“Russia had kind of joined them under the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and there was no sign the United States was going to enter. Britain was all alone.
“People like Halifax and others said to him that ‘Hitler wants a settlement’. Churchill said ‘this won’t work’.
Churchill branded 'persona non-grata' as 'cultural rot' envelops US amid row over removing his bust from Oval OfficeGetty Images“Churchill understood that Britain was actually in a pretty good position. Nobody but he really believed that because he asked his admirals, he asked the RAF Bomber Command, the army, can Hitler invade Britain? They all said no, he has no naval capacity to do so. He does not have air supremacy. Even the U-boats cannot completely shut off supply from North America.
“He kept the British fleet in the Mediterranean. It destroyed the Italian fleet by the end of 1940, almost. He stopped the Italians in North Africa, he tried to blockade. He used Bomber Command and what little resources he has there to at least have this semblance of fighting.
“It showed finally that the Americans knew if they came in, they had an ally that would never give up, and they would come in eventually. I don’t know if they would have under Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain.”
Cooper’s claims have drawn criticism from across the political spectrum and even reached the White House.
Senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told CNN that "giving a microphone to a Holocaust denier who spreads Nazi propaganda is a disgusting and sadistic insult to all Americans, to the memory of the over six million Jews who were genocidally murdered by Adolf Hitler, to the service of the millions of Americans who fought to defeat Nazism, and to every subsequent victim of Antisemitism."