Tom Hanks expresses hope for US democracy on D-Day
Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks sees the big picture when he thinks about America’s future — with or without former President Donald Trump in the White House.
Speaking to CNN in France on D-Day, Hanks was asked if he worries a second Trump presidency would pose a threat to the freedom and liberties more than 2,500 U.S. soldiers died for on the shores of Normandy 80 years ago.
“I think there’s always reason to be worried about the short term, but I look at the long term of what happened,” Hanks told veteran reporter Christiane Amanpour.
In addition to being nominated for a best actor Oscar for his performance in the 1998 World War II film “Saving Private Ryan,” Hanks, who told CNN he sees himself as an amateur historian, also co-created the HBO WWII series “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific.”
He described the U.S. as a work in progress Thursday.
“Our constitution says ‘We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…'” Hanks continued.
According to Hanks, despite noteworthy missteps, the nation tends to march forward in that mission.
“It comes about not because of somebody’s narrative of who is right and who is a victim or any of that,” he said. “It comes out of the slow melding of the truth to the actual practical life we end up living.”
Hanks was joined by filmmaker Steven Spielberg, World War II veterans and President Joe Biden, whom he supports, at Normandy.