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D-Day 80th Anniversary In Normandy, France; President Biden And First Lady Meet With D-Day Veterans. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired June 06, 2024 - 05:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[05:30:57]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, 5:30 a.m. here on the East Coast; 11:30 a.m. in Normandy, France where we see the President of the United States greeting veterans of the historic D-Day invasion that led to the liberation of France and the ultimate fall of the Nazis. This, of course, likely the last major D-Day anniversary that some of these incredibly brave men are going to be able to celebrate as we watch the greatest generation pass before our eyes.

Our senior White House correspondent Kayla Tausche joins us live now from Normandy where she is covering the president. Kayla, good morning to you. Very emotional scenes as these remembrances play out.

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's an incredibly emotional scene Kasie here at the American Cemetery where some 10,000 American troops are memorialized. It is a sunny day here in Normandy -- nothing like the low-slung cloud cover of 80 years ago that allowed the Allied forces to conduct the invasion that became D- Day that we are commemorating today.

You saw Biden is meeting with those veterans, honoring their heroics in that battle as well as in World War II more generally.

You mentioned that this is likely the last major milestone for many World War II veterans. That's one of the reasons why organizers here have gone all out for today's celebration. Thousands expected to meet in attendance. The official U.S.-led commemoration ceremony is expected to kick off in just a few moments.

But there's special resonance for another reason today, and that is who will be participating. Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will not be here at the request of France. But Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, will be here with world leaders, attempting to signal a show of force from the West to continue helping Ukraine defend itself in this modern war on Europe's front lines. That is going to be a major theme in the speeches that we hear from leaders today and in the coming days, and you can expect President Biden to touch on that as well, Kasie.

HUNT: All right, Kayla Tausche for us live from Normandy. Kayla, thank you very much for your reporting. We'll be back with her throughout the morning here.

And when President Biden does speak this morning from Normandy, he'll be focused on the history. But looming over him is an uncertain future as war again rages in Eastern Europe and Americans may elect, as president, again a man who questioned -- questions the value of NATO, which is the very foundation of the piece that these men fought and died for.

Joining me now is Axios senior contributor, Margaret Talev. Margaret, good morning.

Let's talk about the weight of this day and hopefully, we can still kind of see -- you know, watch what's going on live as the president continues to talk --

MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, AXIOS, DIRECTOR, SYRACUSE INSTITUTE FOR DEMOCRACY, JOURNALISM AND CITIZENSHIP: I'm a little teary. (INAUDIBLE).

HUNT: -- with -- I know. And seeing these men have a chance to do this with the President of the United States so many years after they really saved the democracy --

TALEV: The world.

HUNT: The world -- yes, indeed.

TALEV: Yeah.

HUNT: The stakes from -- now, I know you've been to Normandy in the course of your reporting career. Tell us what it's like -- what it's like there and how you see this moment in just an incredibly high -- it really does almost feel like we are at another turning point in world history in some way.

TALEV: It does. I think you set it up right because you see the contrast between how World War II ended and the moment where now with Russia's prolonged war against Ukraine and what it could mean for Western Europe or for democracy writ large. And because of the political stakes at home and these two fundamentally different rivals -- not just in terms of their political parties or their domestic policies but the way they process the lessons of history.

[05:35:00]

And, you know, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are only a few years apart. Joe Biden born two years before the invasion of the beaches at Normandy. Donald Trump born about a year and a half afterwards. They were raised in that same end-of-war -- post-World War II generation but have taken completely different takeaways about how to talk about fascism or autocracy, or U.S. obligations to the world, or the value of the alliance.

You'd asked me about visiting Normandy. I got to go twice when I was covering President Obama and it's an incredible place. The American Cemetery and the monument are so meticulously manicured, and the aura of the place is -- it's both somber and celebratory. It's incredibly quiet and peaceful, and people who go there treat it with that kind of reverence.

The second time I went I snuck away from the filing center for a little while. The president had already left. And I was able to go down -- to walk down the cliff to Omaha Beach and to stand there at the water's edge and turn around and look up, and you could kind of see what it would look like to approach and what a position of vulnerability you're in. What a -- how terrifying it must have been, but how purposeful it must have felt.

Anyone can go there if you can save the money and make the preparation and take that trip. And if you really want to understand the history of the World War II era, it's an incredibly moving visit to make.

HUNT: Yeah. Really, very, very remarkable.

The difference in how -- you know, obviously, President Biden is there in his role representing all Americans on this critical moment. He is, however, running for reelection --

TALEV: Yeah.

HUNT: -- and, I mean, I couldn't help but flash back to what we were covering during the Trump administration. It came out in 2020 -- The Atlantic wrote a story that Trump had -- when he was discussing whether to go to a French cemetery for World War I veterans, The Atlantic wrote this. "In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, 'Why should I go to that cemetery? It's filled with losers.' And in a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to more than 1,800 Marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as suckers for getting killed."

And then John Kelly actually confirmed that on the record to Jake Tapper.

TALEV: The former chief of staff in the --

HUNT: His former chief of staff.

TALEV: Yeah, of course.

HUNT: A veteran who has lost a son in service to our country. And Kelly said to Tapper at the time, "God help us."

It does seem like that very stark contrast is on display today.

TALEV: Yeah, the "suckers and losers" comment is sort of how you could shorthand it. It's still talked about. It's still something that the former president sort of denies or diminishes but it has been confirmed by his former chief of staff.

And you'll remember he also has visited Normandy. Donald Trump has visited Normandy around the 75th anniversary. There was some controversy because he did use that visit to sort of directly swipe back at political rivals and political opponents.

And so I think when you see President Biden's remarks over the next couple of days, he will most likely be very sensitive to that and try to balance -- I mean, obviously, he's going to want to use the opportunity to send a message not just to the world but to a domestic audience, but not to maybe be brazenly political because that is seen as a misuse of this moment and this role.

HUNT: A somber, historic marking.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board also weighed in on not so much the politics of the moment but the importance they view -- they say of making -- of not losing sight of the dangers in the world.

They say, "This year's anniversary is meaningful for more than its famous history or the site of the last living veterans of the day. It will mean much more if America and the citizens of other free nations take that day's lessons to heart amid growing threats from dictators and rogues around the world." And they go on to also write that, "The best way to honor the memory of D-Day is to recall the eternal lesson that to preserve the peace you must prepare for war."

The reality is this view that they have of this is not the one that's one the upswing in the Republican Party today.

TALEV: Yes. I mean, there are two things going on.

One is that the parties have begun to diverge and almost switch roles, in some ways, in terms of foreign policy and what the U.S. role should be. But also, there's just a general aging. These heroes that you see on the screen are 100 years old. The young ones are 88 1/2 or something. Joe Biden looks very spritely in contrast to some of these veterans.

[05:40:05]

And so --

HUNT: Yeah, I think the young -- I think the youngest ones are older than that. I think they're basically in their 90s.

TALEV: About 100, yeah.

HUNT: Yeah.

TALEV: And there are people over 100.

HUNT: My grandfather turned 18 and was drafted in 1944 and was sent to the Philippines. He passed away just this week, actually, at 98 years old.

TALEV: I'm sorry.

HUNT: And so, I mean, I can't help but think of him when I see these men. But he was one of the youngest who actually was drafted into the war. TALEV: So these are centenarians. And although the history lives on,

the immediacy of the history -- the ability to hear the personal stories -- a generation's ability to connect to this as their own wanes with each passing year.

And, yes, it's important for -- to learn in history class and for public officials to talk about the lessons that have shaped and held up and threatened democracy, but if people have never faced fears like that in their own lived experiences -- if those are not the fears that they confront, it gets much more difficult to remind them of the stakes.

It's just something you heard about in the history book the way we might have heard about the colonial era or the Civil War. It seems very far away. And with the passage of time, the lessons of World War II grow further away. And it is -- it is difficult to harness them politically and to talk about them in terms of a shared social fabric that transcends partisan identity and partisan divisions.

HUNT: Yeah. I think this has been a lesson that I personally have been grappling with because I did have a personal -- I grew up with a personal tie to the events that were playing out at this time in our history, and I think it took me a minute to realize that connection was not present with many of our -- you know, we talk a lot about younger voters and I know you interview them all the time -- that they don't have that.

I think I first came across it with people that hadn't remembered 9/11, which was an event that very much shaped kind of my generation's -- the people that I shared a birth year and time in history with.

That this now -- we are reaching a point where this is not going to be something that people have personal connections with, I think. We talk about history repeating itself. Maybe this is partly why.

TALEV: The particulars change but the lessons of humanity loom large. This happens every number of decades. There are threats that rise up to common governance -- threats that are about power and control more than they are about the particular ideology. And these are important lessons for people to understand when you say why is the U.S. spending money overseas when we need so much help at home? Well, the argument for doing that is to keep the threat overseas and not allow it to come home.

HUNT: Right.

TALEV: But for someone who has never lived through that era themselves nor had fathers nor grandfathers nor great-grandfathers who did, you're just sort of asking people to take it on faith or to do the homework themselves.

I think this is an exceptional moment to be able to actually hear from some of the people who, at 100, can still speak --

HUNT: Um-hum.

TALEV: -- cogently and in great detail --

HUNT: Right.

TALEV: -- to their experience.

HUNT: And tell us what they -- what they experienced.

TALEV: Yes.

HUNT: And The Wall Street Journal also notes that in ignoring the rise of Hitler, the price was paid at Pearl Harbor and other places. And then, of course, at the sands of Omaha Beach.

You're watching President Biden on this 80th anniversary of D-Day greeting men who fought that day.

We'll be right back.

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[05:48:05]

WORLD WAR II VETERAN: One-hundred years (INAUDIBLE). I love you.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I love you, too.

HUNT: I love you. I love you, too.

President Biden meeting with the surviving members of the greatest generation who stormed Omaha Beach on D-Day -- an invasion that began the liberation of France and the ultimate freeing of Europe from Nazi tyranny.

We are marking this significant 80th anniversary with the final few of the veterans who remain with us today.

Joining us now is Geoff Duncan. He is a CNN political commentator and former lieutenant governor of the state of Georgia, and someone who has done quite a bit of warning us, frankly, about some of the implications of the decision that Americans face in the election in November. And, of course, Geoff, I'm very grateful to have you this morning.

The president, of course, representing all Americans -- I've said that already this morning -- in his capacity as President of the United States as remember -- we remember these great heroes.

This is not, of course, how his opponent in the election here at home has characterized these men. He infamously, it was reported, called them "suckers and losers." He was talking about Americans who had died in World War I and were buried in a French cemetery. Those comments later confirmed on the record by John Kelly, his former chief of staff.

I'd love to hear your reflections on this day and your sense of the stakes of the choice that Americans are facing in November. GEOFF DUNCAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, (R) FORMER LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF GEORGIA: Well, it's unfortunate that any American would speak of the heroic day and heroic events 80 years ago in any sort of ill will.

[05:50:07]

To me, it's two-fold. Obviously, after D-Day, it's really hard to even comprehend the amount of individual sacrifice, the amount of individual courage, and then the cumulative total of that across that entire effort. It's just hard to calculate. And, to me, it was each individual soldier that is what made the difference. It was this -- it was this woven-in fabric in each one of them -- the courage that they showed up.

It doesn't feel like it was a temporary event. It was just who they were when they showed up. It's who American was when we showed up to sacrifice so much.

HUNT: Geoff, if you -- I am interested to know if you have family connections to the war. If not, I know in your political capacity, I'm sure that you have met with and honored these veterans.

I had the privilege to attend an event at the French Embassy ahead of this marking of this anniversary and many of these men were actually present there. I can -- I recognize some of them because, again, there are so few of them left with us.

What should we be thinking about and what lessons should we be learning from them to take into today?

DUNCAN: Yeah. For me, the veterans that I've got to meet over my lifetime have been -- this was like the single biggest event in their life. It was -- it was just a cornerstone for who they were and what they were about. I mean, you could see the scars or feel the scars of the sacrifice that they -- that they made. But it was just woven in.

And I think we need to take away from them their character. Their resolve is what made them special. Yes, certainly, they learned incredible skills and traits and were trained to the best of our nation's abilities, but it was their character and resolve that made them special. And I think there's a takeaway for that.

As I look at it, as my kids look -- I've got three boys. As I look at it -- I mean, these soldiers were the ages of two of my kids at that -- at that moment in time.

And so, just to think about them showing up, that didn't happen by accident. It wasn't some sort of mass training regimen. It was just woven into their fiber.

And I think that's really what we can never lose in this country is that resolve and determination to do the right thing. And that feels like, at times, a delta from where we are today.

HUNT: Yeah. Can we -- can you talk a little bit about that delta between what that generation stepped up to do then for all of us -- for the world -- and the situation we're in now?

DUNCAN: Yeah. It just feels like -- you know, we shouldn't look at moments in time where we have to do the right thing through the lens of politics. It just -- it cheapens. It just is -- it's the wrong lens to look through.

We should have political arguments. We should have political fights in a period of time away from these big decisions -- away from these big moments when we have to go step up and sacrifice so much. It just feels like politics has leaked into every single corner and we've let it, right? We've let campaign season become the dominant force in how we set policy in this country, and it just seems like that's too cheap of a way for us to actually make a difference in this country.

Certainly, we need to have our political arguments and we need to arm wrestle through the -- through the individual policies and nuances and issues, but we need to come back to the table as Americans. And that's -- you know, that, to me, is --

We shouldn't show up at a ballot box as a Republican or a Democrat; we should show up as an American. Now, we should get to that spot understanding what our core values are. Understanding what's right and what's wrong for us, or our state, or our country. But we should walk in there as an American knowing that ultimate selection is going to be somebody that's going to make some of the biggest, toughest decisions that our country could possibly face.

HUNT: Yeah, it's a strong way to frame it. And the reality is that the fight in Europe -- the ongoing fight in Europe for Ukraine's freedom has become a central political argument here in the U.S.

Are you surprised at how that debate has played out, especially inside the Republican Party?

DUNCAN: Absolutely. I'm horrified at some of the dissention that shows up for what -- if you just peel back one millimeter off the surface of these just disgusting conversations about why we shouldn't fund and be able to have this ability to stop Vladimir Putin, who is an evil operator, in his tracks.

[05:55:00]

Yes, we need to have accountability, but to me, this conversation around Ukraine and other issues around the world have been so politicized that it -- it's a paralysis of nature in making decisions that quite honestly should be easy decisions to make. But we should follow through with accountability. We should follow through with the metrics of what success looks like. But that shouldn't be some sort of wavering voice just for a cheap, shallow tweet that you're going to send that gets 10 more likes on it because you use horrific language in it.

HUNT: Yeah.

All right. Geoff Duncan, former lieutenant governor of Georgia and CNN political commentator. Very grateful for your time this morning. Thank you so much for being here.

DUNCAN: Thanks, Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Coming up next here, special live coverage of the D- Day events from Normandy as we await President Biden's address.

Historian and filmmaker Ken Burns is here with his unique perspective on the significance of D-Day and how it's impacted all of our lives.

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