Never wasting an opportunity to attack President Trump, on Wednesday, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell and her guests did so as they sat alongside the military cemetery in Normandy, France, the final resting place of those who died in the 1944 allied D-Day invasion. Reporting from the site ahead of Thursday’s memorial service marking the 75th anniversary of the brutal battle, the panel of journalists denounced Trump for supposedly trying to “challenge the post-World War II order.”
The discussion began with Daily Beast World News Editor Christopher Dickey noting that the brave soldiers who died there were fighting for “American values” and “fighting to stop tyranny, to spread democracy, to defeat Hitler. To create a better world at the end of the day.” However, he then took that meaningful tribute and made it about politics: “But what you wonder now is whether, in the world we live in today, those values remain a major part of American policy.”
Mitchell seized on his remark, fretting: “And for all the pomp and circumstance that the President reveled in, in London, Bill, we are as far apart from our British allies and our French allies....there are real divisions with the President, who is really the first president in 70 years to challenge the post-World War II order.”
NBC News chief global correspondent Bill Neely agreed and melodramatically proclaimed that all of the D-Day events were designed to rein in Trump:
And I think if I have one take away from the state visit to the UK, which is not over, it was the desperate, almost desperate British or European attempt to bind President Trump, to almost lasso him into those ties that bind. And there was at the end of it a D-Day proclamation in which they all agreed on the common values, democracy, the rule of law. The Europeans trying to drag President Trump back into NATO. You heard it from the Queen on the very first night, at the banquet, stressing although times have changed, the institutions that were established after World War II have done their job. And she didn’t mention NATO or the UN by name, but that’s what she meant.
And interesting here tomorrow, you know, this is a sacred place, but it’s also a place of common purpose and of moral certainty. And these are times of moral uncertainties and a time when common purpose is hard to find. And I think one of the themes again here tomorrow will be to bind President Trump into that common purpose once again.
Dickey jumped in to rant: “I think it’s very difficult with Trump, though, because he is an egomaniac....Everything has to be his victory. These people didn’t die for Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill. They died...to save western civilization.”
The media despise Trump so much that they even manage to use the most solemn occasions to trash him.
Here is a transcript of the June 5 segment:
12:14 PM ET
(...)
ANDREA MITCHELL: Chris Dickey, as you and Bill and I sit here in a hallowed place, just yards from these crosses, these incredible white crosses that are decorated especially with the flags for this memorial, 75 years. Chris you’ve done a lot of thinking and you live in Paris and you can speak as an American from both sides of the Atlantic about this – the experience here.
CHRISTOPHER DICKEY [WORLD NEWS EDITOR, THE DAILY BEAST]: Well, in fact, this is one of the places I think that you can go in the world where it’s very hard to resist enormous emotions. You see all those graves, all those young men who died storming these beaches and in the battles that followed. And you think, I think anyway, about what they were fighting for. And what they were fighting for were American values. They were fighting to stop tyranny, to spread democracy, to defeat Hitler. To create a better world at the end of the day. Of course they were also fighting to stay alive under the German guns. That’s the primary concern at that moment. But what you wonder now is whether, in the world we live in today, those values remain a major part of American policy.
MITCHELL: And for all the pomp and circumstance that the President reveled in, in London, Bill, we are as far apart from our British allies and our French allies, he’ll be meeting with Macron tomorrow. The dispute over intelligence sharing, these threats about how the Russian investigation began and who was going to challenge Theresa May. They smoothed over a lot of things in public, but there are real divisions with the President, who is really the first president in 70 years to challenge the post-World War II order.
BILL NEELY [NBC NEWS CHIEF GLOBAL CORRESPONDENT]: And I think if I have one take away from the state visit to the UK, which is not over, it was the desperate, almost desperate British or European attempt to bind President Trump, to almost lasso him into those ties that bind. And there was at the end of it a D-Day proclamation in which they all agreed on the common values, democracy, the rule of law. The Europeans trying to drag President Trump back into NATO. You heard it from the Queen on the very first night, at the banquet, stressing although times have changed, the institutions that were established after World War II have done their job. And she didn’t mention NATO or the UN by name, but that’s what she meant.
And interesting here tomorrow, you know, this is a sacred place, but it’s also a place of common purpose and of moral certainty. And these are times of moral uncertainties and a time when common purpose is hard to find. And I think one of the themes again here tomorrow will be to bind President Trump into that common purpose once again.
DICKEY: I think it’s very difficult with Trump, though, because he is an egomaniac. And he sees all this as being about him not about those big issues. That’s also why Korea – why does he defend Kim Jong-un? Because he wants his win in those negotiations. Everything has to be his victory. These people didn’t die for Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill. They died...
MITCHELL It was shared sacrifice to save a way of life and values.
DICKEY: ...to save western civilization.
(...)
