Key events
Biden compares fight against Hitler to resisting Putin
Joe Biden compared the storming of Normandy’s beaches that led to the allies defeating the Nazis in Europe to the campaign to oppose Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
“Every Marine who stormed this beaches decided a feared dictator, who had conquered a continent, had finally met his match. Because of them, the war turned. They stood against Hitler’s aggression,” Biden said.
He then turned to the challenges of today:
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 want America to go alone today?
They fought to vanquish a hateful ideology the 30s and 40s. 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?
These rangers remembered with reverence those who gave their lives in battle. Could they, or anyone, ever imagine that America wouldn’t do the same?
Biden began by recounting the effort by US army rangers on D-day to take Point du Hoc, where they believed Nazi artillery that could threaten the Normandy landings were stationed.
“All they knew was time was of the essence, and only 30 minutes, 30 minutes to eliminate the guns high in this cliff, guns that could halt the Allied invasion before it even began,” Biden said.
He recounted the tale:
These were American Rangers. They were ready. They ran toward the cliffs, and mines planted on the beach by field marshal … Rommel exploded around them, but still they kept coming. Gunfire rained above them, but still they kept coming. Grenades thrown from above exploded against the cliff, but still they kept coming. Within minutes, they reached the base of this cliff. They launched their ladders, the 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 clogged their way up this mighty precipice until the last they reached the top.
Biden’s at the podium now.
He was wearing his aviators, but just took them off.
Joe Biden has appeared, and will soon begin his speech at Normandy’s Pointe du Hoc on democracy.
He is about 40 minutes late to starting the address. Cameras show the president walking along the edge of the promontory, along with someone who looks like a local official or guide, and is pointing out features to Biden.
Beyond marking the anniversary of D-day, Joe Biden is using his visit to Normandy to rally support for Ukraine. Today, the Guardian’s Angelique Chrisafis reports that he apologized to Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the delay in getting the country military aid:
The US president, Joe Biden, has apologised publicly to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for the months of delay in American military assistance that allowed Russia to make gains on the battlefield, and announced a further $225m (£177m) in military aid to Ukraine.
Meeting Zelenskiy in Paris on Friday, Biden told him: “You haven’t bowed down, you haven’t yielded at all, you continue to fight in a way that is … just remarkable. We are not going to walk away from you.”
Biden said: “I apologise for those weeks of not knowing” what was going to happen in terms of funding. He was referring to the uncertainty while Congress waited six months before sending a $61bn military aid package for Ukraine in April. “Some of our very conservative members [of Congress] were holding it up. But we got it done, finally,” he added.
Biden said the American people were standing by Ukraine for the long haul. “We’re still in. Completely. Thoroughly.”
In his forthcoming speech from Normandy’s Point du Hoc, Joe Biden will remind Americans and the world of how difficult it can be to maintain a democracy.
“When we talk about democracy – American democracy – we often talk big ideas like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What we don’t talk about enough is how hard it is,” the president will say, according to excerpts released by the White House.
“American democracy asks the hardest of things: to believe that we’re a part of something bigger than ourselves. So democracy begins with each of us.”
Biden to address democracy in Normandy speech
We’re a few minutes away from Joe Biden delivering a speech on the Normandy coastline, where the White House says the theme will be democracy – meaning the president may take more shots, veiled or unveiled, at Donald Trump and his authoritarian plans.
Biden will speak from Pointe du Hoc, a strategic promontory that was a key objective for US forces during the D-day invasion, and gained renewed attention four decades later when Ronald Reagan delivered a notable address from the point. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh:
On Friday, Biden is due to speak at Pointe du Hoc, where 80 years ago 225 US Rangers scaled 35-metre sheer cliffs using rope ladders shot over the top to capture a strategically situated artillery bunker. It was perhaps the most dangerous single mission on D-day, and casualties were severe. Only 90 were still able to fight when a count was taken a couple of days later.
There is almost certainly another reason for the location of Biden’s address, given the US president has an election to fight. Forty years ago a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, spoke on the cliffs at the same battle site, and in front of an audience of military veterans he justified the struggle of the day in terms not obviously recognisable in Donald Trump’s Republican worldview.
“We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars: it is better to be here ready to protect the peace than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost,” Reagan declared – very different to Trump’s comments that he would refuse to defend Nato members who do not spend enough on defence, never mind previous threats to quit the alliance altogether.
‘Is he describing himself? Weak and pathetic?’ Biden quips as rhetorical war against Trump heats up
Joe Biden yesterday gave an interview to ABC News during his visit to France. The president was in Normandy to mark the 80th anniversary of D-day, but American politics are never far from his mind, and Biden was asked about the executive order he signed before departing Washington DC this week, which will shut the US southern border to new asylum seekers when it becomes “overwhelmed”.
Interviewer David Muir wanted Biden’s reaction to comments from Donald Trump that the order was “weak and pathetic”. The president seized on the opportunity to do something he and his re-election campaign have done with increasing regularity: insult the former president. Here’s what Biden said:
Is he describing himself? Weak and pathetic? Come on, look, everybody knows what’s happened. We had a deal, it was much broader than this, much better, much more accepted, across the board, and he got on the phone and told the Republicans, don’t support it. It will hurt me, it will help Biden.
He is referring to the February episode in which Trump intervened with Republicans to get them to scuttle a bipartisan compromise to tighten immigration policy – reportedly so he could campaign on solving the problem himself, if elected.
Biden’s comments are also a sign of how the president is not holding back in laying into Trump, who since 2015 has distinguished himself with his willingness to call people names. Earlier this year, the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt took a look at the strategy:
Trump calls for the indictment of January 6 committee members as Biden fires back over immigration attacks
Good morning, US politics blog readers.
Yesterday, Steve Bannon’s nearly two-year-long effort to avoid going to jail for defying the House committee investigating the January 6 attack appeared to reach its end, when a judge ordered him to begin his four-month jail sentence by 1 July. Bannon was a former top White House adviser to Donald Trump and instrumental in crafting his Maga ideology. In response to the judge’s decision, the ex-president posted on Truth Social that the committee’s members should be indicted. Add that to the list of things Trump has threatened to do if he returns to the White House.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden is in France to participate in events marking the 80th anniversary of D-day. In an interview yesterday with ABC News, he was asked about Trump’s comment that his order this week to curb the flow of asylum seekers was “weak and pathetic”. “Is he describing himself?” the president shot back.
Here’s what else is going on today:
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Biden is set to speak at 10am ET on democracy at Pointe du Hoc, a promontory on the Normandy coast where a fierce battle took place on D-day.
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The US economy added 272,000 jobs in May, much more than expected, even as unemployment increased slightly. Read more here.
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Trump sat for an interview with television personality Dr Phil – seemingly in front of the stage at Mar-a-Lago where classified documents were found, as the Biden campaign is eager to point out.
