Biden Warns Of Threat To Democracy At Iconic Pointe Du Hoc WWII Site In Normandy

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