U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday urged Americans to honor the Army Rangers who turned the tide of World War II by scaling the steep cliffs of Pointe du Hoc in France by doing their part to preserve democracy against aggression from both abroad “and at home.”
“They fought to vanquish a hateful ideology in the ’30s and ’40s,” Biden said at the iconic monument atop the windswept promontory overlooking the English Channel in Normandy. “Does anyone doubt they wouldn’t move heaven and earth to vanquish hateful ideologies of today? These Rangers put mission and country above themselves. Does anyone believe they would exact any less from every American today?”
Biden never mentioned his coup-attempting predecessor, Donald Trump, by name in the 11-minute speech, but has spent the last year warning that the now-convicted felon is promising to rule as an autocrat if he wins back the White House in November.
Biden’s speech at Pointe du Hoc mirrors the one given by then-President Ronald Reagan from that same site in 1984, at the 40th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of the French coast that began the process of liberating Western Europe from Nazi Germany.
Like Reagan four decades earlier, Biden recounted the assault on the cliffs mounted by 225 U.S. Army soldiers from the 2nd Ranger Battalion as they landed on the beach with the assignment of taking out the long-range German artillery at the top that threatened the thousands of Allied ships taking part in the assault.
“They launched their ladders, their ropes and grappling hooks, and they began to climb. When the Nazis cut their ladders, the Rangers used the ropes. When the Nazis cut the ropes, the Rangers used their hands. And inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard, the Rangers clawed ― literally clawed ― their way up this mighty precipice until at last they reached the top,” Biden said. “One thought comes to mind: My God. My God. How did they do it?”
But while Reagan’s warnings about freedom and democracy in 1984 focused on the then-Soviet Union and its decades-long grip on Eastern Europe, Biden’s warning was largely centered on something unimaginable four decades ago: a threat from within.
Biden pointed out that he is the first president to go to Pointe du Hoc when none of the surviving Rangers from the assault is still alive, and he asked Americans to honor their spirit.
“So listen to the echoes of their voices to hear them, because they are summoning us and they’re summoning us now,” he said. “They’re not asking us to scale these cliffs, but they’re asking us to stay true to what America stands for.”
He urged Americans to remember the sacrifices made to preserve democracy by resisting the call to abandon those ideals.
“The most natural instinct is to walk away, to be selfish, to force our will upon others, to seize power and never give up,” he said. “To come here simply to remember the ghosts of Pointe du Hoc isn’t enough. We need to hear them. We have to listen to them. … We need to make a solemn vow to never let them down.”
Trump became the first president in U.S. history to refuse to hand over power peacefully after losing an election, instead attempting a coup to remain in office. That culminated in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a last-ditch effort to coerce Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, and Congress into awarding Trump a second term.
One hundred and forty police officers were injured in the hourslong assault. One died hours later and four others died by suicide in the following weeks.
Trump faces federal and Georgia state indictments based on his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, as well as an unrelated federal indictment because of his refusal to turn over secret documents he took with him to his South Florida country club when he left the White House.
Late last month, a New York state jury convicted him on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to a porn actor to keep her story from hurting his 2016 presidential campaign.
Despite all this, Trump is expected to be officially nominated as the Republican presidential candidate for the November election at the party’s convention next month in Milwaukee.