New GOP senator bungles WWII facts and says US fought ‘socialism’

Tommy Tuberville, the incoming Republican senator from Alabama, doubled down on his erroneous grasp of World War II history in comments on Thursday, telling a news site his father, a US soldier, fought to “free Europe of socialism.”

“I tell people, my dad fought 76 years ago in Europe to free Europe of Socialism,” he told Alabama Daily News. “Today, you look at this election, we have half this country that made some kind of movement, now they might not believe in it 100 per cent, but they made some kind of movement toward socialism.”

Last week, he made a similar remark in a speech to supporters, recounting that his father was part of “liberating Paris from socialism and communism.”