What We’re Following Today
It’s Thursday, June 6.
(Carlos Barria / Reuters)
75 Years Ago Today: President Donald Trump visited Normandy, France, and delivered a speech commemorating the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Standing in front of other world leaders, he spoke about the courage of soldiers and the importance of the Allied partnership; even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi admitted to Peter Nicholas that it was “lovely.”
“Trouble is,” writes Nicholas, “when Trump talks about history, the incongruities with his own personal story become only more jarring.” Trump dodged the Vietnam draft, repeatedly mocked the former prisoner of war John McCain, and has threatened to leave NATO allies to “go it alone.” It’s unclear how much of his speech Trump meant, and how much was just “words on a page.”
Rachel Donadio visited Omaha Beach earlier this week. “I had been told nothing quite prepares you for this place, and it was true,” she writes. “Cemeteries bring back ghosts. But the sadness, or grief, was also world-historical.” She felt stuck by the fragility of the postwar world order, and reflected that “it may even be over.”
How to Interpret the Iran Threat: In recent weeks, the relationship between the United States and Iran has become even rockier—and it’s less and less clear what counts as an immediate threat. Mike Giglio spoke with people who have experience dealing with Iran in different contexts—in an intelligence agency, in Congress, and in diplomatic circles. They all agreed on one thing, he writes: “a retaliatory U.S. military strike is possible.”
