Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on Joe Biden's address at the D-Day commemorations

World leaders and surviving veterans of the Normandy landings gathered on both sides of the Channel on the 80th anniversary of D-Day. 

In France, Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Princess Anne have been taking part in commemorations. 

And in the UK, King Charles, Rishi Sunak and Prince William have been paying tribute to those who fought to "replace tyranny with freedom", in a service at the key departure point of Portsmouth. 

Biden delivered a speech at the commemorations linking the allied efforts on D-Day with the challenges posed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  

US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking that he then said in a separate interview that Vladimir Putin is “not a decent man” and is struggling to keep his country together while continuing the assault. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Richard Arnold in the States. Good morning to you, morning, Mike.
Quite the scene, wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yeah. So the president spoke of the dangers of isolationism
and the need to protect and nurture democracy. January the sixth,
nineteen eighty four. That president was Republican Ronald Reagan, who
marked the fortieth anniversary of D Day, the Allied invasion
that liberated France and went on to defeat Hitler and
his cohorts everywhere. On this day, on this eightieth anniversary

(00:26):
of the D Day landings, there were one hundred and
eighty surviving Vets of Normandy participating. They're mostly one hundred
years old or more. A few were able to walk
under their own power now. Others came in wheelchairs, but
then many struggled to their feet as French President Macron
kissed them and pinned medals to their coats, with some
of these men in tears, those experiences remain. One hundred

(00:48):
and three year old Floyd Bear says this is his
last trip to the Normandy beaches. There's a pilot in
nineteen forty four and says what he saw as he
flew his cover mission on that day was a scene
that appeared to show every ship and boat in the
world approaching the French coast. That'll be about right. Veteran
Dick Rung was nineteen when he was on a tank
lander that came into Omaha Beach. He recalls hosing down

(01:10):
the human blood from the deck. He says, quote, two
of the soldiers got badly hit. We couldn't save them,
but we covered them with blankets and the blankets soaked
up their blood. Finding the skipper said we can't leave
it like this, so we got out the fire hose
and washed down the deck of the blood. I was
only a kid, and most of us were too. I
wasn't trained for this, he says. His craft stayed in

(01:32):
Normandy for almost five months, transporting troops, supplies, and vehicles
to the shore. He then went off to the Pacific Theater,
where he often spoke of the brutality of war, saying,
I am a peacemaker. I'm not going to do this again.
At Point to Hok where Prinsident Reagan later spoke, Usamy
Rangers scaled the steep cliffs while under German machine gun fire.

(01:53):
In the audience today who were also were actor Tom
Hanks and director Stephen Spielberg, of course, made the searing
movie Saving Private Ryan, and since have been documenting the
lives of World War II vets. President Biden has delivered
a powerful address linking the Allied effort on D Day
with the challenges posed right now by the Russian invasion
in Ukraine, whose President Zelinsky also is on hand.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
The struggle between the dictatorship and freedom is ending here
in Europe. We see one stark example. Ukraine has been
invaded by a tyrant been on domination. Ukrainians are fighting
with extraordinary curves. The United States and NATO and a

(02:37):
coalition of more than fifty countries stany strong with Ukraine.
We will not walk away.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Then, in a separate interview, Biden spoke of Russia's Putin,
whom he said he has known for some forty years.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
He's not a decent man.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
He's a dictator, and he's struggling to make sure he
houlds this country together while still keeping this a sualt
cone it.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Biden will deliver another statement at Point to Hog this weekend,
then returned to Europe for the g seventh summit in Italy.
He will also make a stop at Below Woods near Paris.
Where many American troops killed in World War One are married.
Six years ago, while he was president, Donald Trump canceled
a visit infamously to that ceremony at the cemetery because

(03:20):
of bad weather. That led a grandson of Winston Churchill
at the time to lash out, saying, quote, they died
with their face to the foe, and Trump couldn't even
defy the weather.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
All right, mate, me have a good week. Can we'll
catchup next week. Appreciate it very much, Richard Donald state side.
That's an interview, by the way, is getting headlines for
other reasons. He's talking about ABC's news anchor David Muir.

Speaker 4 (03:41):
He claims, this, listen, I've known him for for forty years.
He's concerned me for forty years. He's not a decent man.
He's a dictator and he's struggling to make sure he
houls this country together.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Problem is, of course, he refers to Putney hasn't done
him forty years, and he hasn't been worried about him
for forty years because the better part of the eighties,
which takes him there forty year period, he was of
course an undercover KGP intelligence officer, so he wouldn't have
known of him at all, and there is a growing,
once again laissent among some of the American media that
this guy's not all there and that needs to be

(04:14):
addressed more and more before the election.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
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