President Joe Biden on Friday looked to summon Americans to defend democracy from threats at home and abroad — and cast an implicit contrast with Donald Trump — by drawing on the heroism of Army Rangers who scaled the seaside cliffs of Pointe du Hoc in the D-Day invasion 80 years ago.
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00:00You know, we stand today, where we stand was not sacred ground on June the 5th, but that's
00:10what it became on June the 6th.
00:12The Rangers who scaled this cliff didn't know they would change the world, but they did.
00:19I've long said that history has shown that ordinary Americans can do extraordinary things
00:24when challenged.
00:26There's no better example of that in the entire world than right here at Pointe du
00:31Hoc.
00:32Rangers from farms and cities in every part of America, from homes that didn't know wealth
00:40and power, they came to a shoreline that none of them would have picked out on a map.
00:47They came to a country many of them had never seen, for a people they had never met.
00:54But they came, they did their job, they fulfilled their mission, and they did their duty.
01:02I stand here today as the first president to come to Pointe du Hoc when none of those
01:09225 brave men who scaled this cliff on D-Day are still alive.
01:15None.
01:16But I'm here to tell you that with them gone, the wind we hear coming off this ocean will
01:22not fade, it will grow louder.
01:27As we gather here today, it's not just to honor those who showed such remarkable bravery
01:32on that day, June 6, 1944, it's to listen to the echoes of their voices, to hear them,
01:41because they are summoning us, and they're summoning us now.
01:46They ask us, what will we do?
01:49They're not asking us to scale these cliffs, but they're asking us to stay true to what
01:54America stands for.
01:56They're not asking us to give or risk our lives, but they are asking us to care for
02:01others in our country more than ourselves.