Forty years later, President Joe Biden on Friday channeled former President Ronald Reagan’s oft-praised D-Day speech at Pointe du Hoc in Normandy.
“We stand on a lonely windswept point on the northern shore of France,” Reagan said in his 1984 “boys of Pointe du Hoc” speech. “At dawn on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.”
“Dawn, 6th of June, 1944,” Biden said Friday. “The wind was pounding as it is today and always has against these cliffs. 225 American Rangers arrived by ship, jumped into the waves, and stormed the beach.”
Biden gave the speech a day after ceremonies were held in France to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day. At several points, Biden’s address drew allusions to Reagan’s speech at the same location. Biden compared the 1930s and 1940s to today’s time. And he drew comparisons between Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin, urging wider support for Ukraine and for combating threats to democracy abroad and in the United States.
Reagan: “We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest.”
Biden: “Does anyone doubt that they would want America to stand up against Putin's aggression here in Europe today? They stormed the beaches alongside their allies. Does anyone believe these Rangers would want America to go it alone today? They fought to vanquish a hateful ideology in the 30s and 40s. Does anyone doubt they wouldn't move heaven and earth to vanquish hateful ideologies of today?”
