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. The same spot was etched in the nation's political memory in 1984, when President Ronald Reagan, honored the “boys of Pointe du Hoc” and drew common cause between their almost unthinkable feat in the face of Nazi Germany's tyranny to the then-Cold War struggle against the Soviet Union. Now, Biden sought to channel both historic moments to advance his own vision for the country’s global role amid two grueling wars and the persistence of former President Trump, who has continued to lie about his 2020 election loss and threatened to dismantle U.S. commitments overseas. “As we gather here today, it’s not just to honor those who showed such remarkable bravery that day June 6, 1944,” Biden said. “It’s to listen to the echo of their voices. To hear them. Because they are summoning us. They’re asking us what will we do. They’re not asking us to scale these cliffs. They’re asking us to stay true to what America stands for.” While ostensibly an official speech, coming a day after Biden marked the anniversary of the Normandy landings with solemn ceremonies alongside allies, Biden's remarks were steeped in political overtones, as his campaign makes a renewed play for national security-minded Republican voters who lionized Reagan and have never warmed to Trump's “America First” foreign policy. “They’re not asking us to do their job,” Biden said of the “ghosts of Pointe Du Hoc." "They’re asking us to do our job: to protect freedom in our time, to defend democracy, to stand up aggression abroad and at home, to be part of something bigger than ourselves.”