Biden says heroes killed on D-Day and troops who fought the Nazis would want America to stand up to Putin in speech on cliff where Rangers died liberating Europe

President Joe Biden told the story of Army Rangers who scaled a 100-foot cliff under Nazi gunfire 80 years ago and urged Americans to follow their lead in the fight against hateful ideologies at home and abroad in a major speech Friday.

Standing above the beaches where Allied troops poured into occupied France on D-Day, he invoked their spirits to lay out his own vision of America’s place in the world.

“Does anyone doubt that they would want America to stand up against this? Putin“The aggression here in Europe today,” he said.

‘They stormed the beaches together with our allies. Does anyone believe the Rangers want America to go it alone today?”

Biden is in France to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day and will be feted in Paris on Saturday during an official visit.

President Joe Biden used the backdrop of Pointe du Hoc, between the Normandy landing beaches, to deliver a speech about democracy and American ideals

But Friday’s speech was fraught with politics, as it has been in the election year and as Biden seeks to win over Reaganites, who are concerned about Donald Trump’s stance on national security.

“When we talk about democracy – American democracy – we often talk about big ideas like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” he said. “What we don’t talk about enough is how hard it is.”

To underline this point, the presidential lectern was placed on a concrete German bunker.

The setting couldn’t have been more dramatic, with the blue of the English channel behind him the rocky landing beaches on either side, and the ground all around littered with 50-foot craters.

It couldn’t have been more symbolic. In 1984, Ronald Reagan used the same place to deliver one of the most powerful speeches of his presidency, using the story of how a brave band of Army Rangers scaled the dangerous cliffs of Pointe du Hoc as part of the fight against tyranny.

“These are the guys from Pointe du Hoc,” he said in a speech at the height of the Cold War.

“These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped liberate a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.”

He was an aging president who used faded American glory to bolster his re-election campaign.

Biden risks unflattering comparisons by so closely replicating one of his Republican predecessor’s most inspiring moments.

President Ronald Reagan gives his famous ‘Boys of Pointe du Hoc’ speech in Normandy on June 6, 1984 – the 40th anniversary of D-Day

A group of US Army Rangers demonstrate how they climbed a rope ladder on the rock face at Pointe du Hoc to surprise a Nazi gun position

Sergeant Ben Beale, with veterans Jack Mortimer, John Life, Corporal Aaron Stone, veteran Donald Jones, Corporal Paul Squires and veteran Peter Newton, as the veterans return to Sword Beach in Normandy, France, after landing there on D-Day

But it underlines how he thinks he can position himself Democrats as the party of international freedom at a time when Donald Trump has said he would encourage it Russia to ‘do whatever it wants’ NATO allies who do not spend enough on their armed forces.

A B-52 bomber – escorted by two F35s – flew past before Biden’s arrival.

And his audience included veterans like Pfc John Wardell, 99, of New Jersey, who came ashore on June 16, 1944.

Biden was in Normandy a day earlier, taking part in events marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

He used it to warn of the dangers of isolationism and to underline the importance of international alliances, such as the one that brought more than 150,000 troops to the occupied territories. France within 24 hours.

“Surrendering to bullies, bowing to dictators is simply unthinkable,” he said at the American cemetery in Normandy, with thirty D-Day veterans behind him.

“If we did that, we would forget what happened here on these sacred beaches.”

Earlier in the day, Biden put his money where his mouth was. He met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and announced another $225 million in funding for his fight against Russia, apologizing for delays in delivering aid.

“We are still… fully and thoroughly engaged with it,” Biden told his Ukrainian counterpart during their meeting at a Paris hotel.