President Joe Biden thanked the American Rangers who stormed Pointe du Hoc in France 80 years ago while touting American democracy in a Friday speech commemorating D-Day.
“These were American Rangers. They were ready,” Biden said from the top of the cliffs they climbed that day, the same site where President Ronald Reagan delivered a Cold War-era speech honoring the soldiers in 1984. “They ran toward the cliffs and mines planted on the beach by Field Marshal Rommel, exploded around them, but still, they kept coming. Nazi grenades thrown from above exploded against the cliffs, but still, they kept coming.”
World War II veteran John Wardell, 99, from New Jersey, was seated in the front row of the audience beside Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The president is spending this week in France to mark the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, better known as D-Day. He had visited a cemetery on Thursday where many of the Rangers who died in the battle are buried.
“Today, as we look out at this battlefield, at all the bunkers and bomb craters that are still surrounded, one thought comes to mind, ‘My God, how did they do it?’” Biden said. “How were these Americans willing to risk everything?”
While thanking the soldiers for their bravery, Biden also touched on current events, including the war in Ukraine and, subtly, this fall’s elections.
“When we talk about democracy, American democracy, we often talk big ideas like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” the president said. “What we don’t talk about enough is how hard it is.”
“American democracy asks the hardest of things: to believe that we’re a part of something bigger than ourselves,” he continued. “So democracy begins with each of us.”
Late in the speech, Biden spoke of “ensur[ing] that our democracy endures and that the soul of our nation endures.” He has described the 2020 and 2022 campaigns as a “battle for the soul of the nation” and calls former President Donald Trump a threat to democracy.
The president was looking to channel Reagan, aides said ahead of the event. The speech later featured in Reagan’s successful reelection campaign.
Biden also said the soldiers who stormed Normandy would support Ukraine against Russian President Vladimir Putin and that they would oppose isolationism.
“Does anyone doubt that they would want America to stand up against Putin’s aggression here in Europe today?” Biden said. “They stormed the beaches alongside our allies. Does anyone believe these Rangers would want America to go it alone today?”
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Biden finished by saying the memory of Pointe du Hoc wasn’t enough.
“We have to listen to them,” he said. “We need to make a solemn vow to never let them down. God bless the fallen. God bless the brave men who scaled these cliffs, and may God protect our troops. God bless America.”