Tom Hanks asked if he is worried about another Trump presidency. Hear his response

I just want to know what it feels like to be here on the 80th. It may be the last of these reunions. I don't... I mean, if you do the math, if you were, say you were 17 years old and you were making your first trip into combat on June 6th of 1944, you would do the math, you're now 97 years old. That they're here, I mean, the first thing I say to any of the veterans that I happen to meet is, don't get up, you know, because, you know, they're more or less wheelchair bound. But there they are, resplendent in their patches and their hats and their caps and the memories. And I ponder what these last 80 years have been for them. I want to ask them, what's the most extraordinary thing you've witnessed since that day? And there's an awful lot to take note of. But would any of it have happened if this day had not been? Well, I wonder, you know, since you lead me straight into that question, it's probably, OK, bar the Cold War, when there wasn't a raging war in Europe, it's probably the most difficult, most existential crisis for everybody since their sacrifice, with Russia having invaded Ukraine, with a literal raging war in Europe. I never thought there'd be a land war in Europe in my lifetime once again because it had proven to be so disastrous for all of humanity the last time somebody tried that. And it's funny how often it comes out of the ego of one human being. One guy back in the 1930s says, no, I'm going to solve all these problems because I know what works and what does not work. I think, you know, look, I'm a lay historian and I'm as opinionated as any knothead that you're ever going to come across. But there was this thought that America, particularly America, was lazy, was divided, was undisciplined, that couldn't get its act together, that would never band together in order just to do the right thing by choice. And when I'm here, I think of a bunch of kids. There was a young force that came here. They were somewhere between heights. If you were 25 years old, they called you Pops, or they called you the old man. And they left absolutely all of the comforts of a very comfortable America, a safe America on the other side of the ocean. And they put themselves here for what? Because it was the right thing to do. And they were not defending a status quo. They were not gaining territory. They were not here for riches. They were not here to conquer anything. They were really here in order to mend the future, if I can coin a word that has just come out in a book that I read not too long ago. There was an article, I want to say in the Bedford newspaper, in which on the 6th of June, because of the time lag, made it possible for the 6th of June to have this be the headlines in United States of America. And it said the next 50 years of European history is being decided right now on the fields and beaches of Normandy. It was not about everything that had happened prior to 1944. It was actually about what was going to happen in 1954 and 64. I was born in 1956. Had D-Day not happened, and that's not hard to imagine here. You can look around and we can see the evasion in our minds. We can see the day. But we can also imagine, with a little bit of turn of frame, what if it had not happened, if this had stayed as it had been, a conquered territory by one of the most murderous regimes. There we go. There's a FedEx that's delivering my Uber lunch. What would it have been like if all those, that young forces and the Canadians and the English and all the free forces had not come along and said those people are wrong? Can I ask you something? Because one man is doing it again, Vladimir Putin. He hasn't been invited. He was 10 years ago, but this time not. Do you think, when you think about it, Americans would do this again, British would do it again? I mean, we're in the fight of our lives again. Well, you don't have to go back very far to believe, as early as 1939 and 1940 and big parts of 1941, there was a huge vocal section of the United States of America that said no way. Charles Lindbergh led the America first. There were literally Nazi party rallies in Madison Square Garden in which Adolf Hitler and George Washington, their images were up on stage at the same time. It wasn't until, of course, that we were attacked that everybody kind of like wised up and realized that something very venal was going on in the world. You can't help but wonder where would we be right now? And I have absolute 100% faith in the American people and the concept of what is right and what is wrong. And if something as definitive as what happened in Europe back then, I don't think there would be any question that it would take time. It would not be overnight. It would be thought out and it would be, I think, taking into account all the lessons that were learned. What happens when you don't do it right over a long course of time? Can I ask you, I walked over there, I looked at the beach. It's Omaha Beach. The cliffs that those boys had to scale. Then they had to rush and start to liberate a place they didn't even know anything about. And as you say, they were so young. You did that film, Saving Private Ryan. I know you're an actor, but everybody says it's one of the most realistic depictions of what happened that day. Can you recall what it was like actually filming that and putting yourselves in their boots for that period of time? Well, of course, part of it is glamorous fun. But at the other time, as soon as the cameras started rolling and everything started happening, there was a tactile quality to the confusion. One of the things that happened was special effects guys would come up. And all over the beach were these little red flags. They said, hey, be careful where the little red flags are because there's explosive charges underneath there, and it's going to throw some stuff off. And whatever you do, don't step over there because that's a whole air ram that's going to throw a guy up in the air. And a guy down there is going to be lit on fire, so try to stay away from him. And you put that together, and it's just, well, this is a pretty glamorous day of work. What time's lunch? But then it begins. And the first thing they did was removed all those red flags, and I realized something goes on. Now, we are not in any danger at all whatsoever. But the barissamilitude, if I dare use that word, does put it in a different sort of form. There is a moment when, of course, as actors, we're just pretending. But there comes a moment where the reason we're there is to capture the truth as the film rolls, and to be cold, wet, scared, and have it be awfully noisy for an awful long time. I remember when we were shooting, and by the way, this is one of the reasons Steven Spielberg wanted to make the movie. He said, finally, I'll be able to do with film technology, I'll actually be able to capture what happened on Omaha Beach, and here's how I'm going to do it. First, it's going to take three weeks. And secondly, it's going to be every single day. And third, we're going to have all kinds of stuff going off. And fourth, in between there, we'll make some sort of movie. At the same time, we're trying to load it up with as much authentic, and I wanted to use the word again, barissamilitude as we can. Okay, that's our job as filmmakers. It's also our job as lay historians, because for good or for bad, that movie is a document that has to accurately reflect the tenor of that day. And I'd like to think that we did. On this day, President Biden is also obviously giving his big speeches, and it'll all be in the cloak of democracy. That's what we're defending. I like that, the cloak of democracy, sure. Yeah, and without mentioning, you know, Donald Trump, he will talk about the stakes for America and for the world. Finally, do you worry about the United States in terms of its commitment to democracy and freedom and everything these people died for, if there's another Trump presidency? I think there's always a reason to be worried about the short term, but I look at the longer term of what happened. I think there is an ongoing, look, our Constitution says, we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, that journey to a more perfect union has missteps in it. We know. I can catalogue them as much as you can, and you're a professional journalist, and I'm just a guy that makes movies and reads books. And a historian. Okay, and a lay historian, I'll take that, too. Over the long term, however, we inevitably make progress towards, I think, that more perfect union. That's what it is. And how does it come about? It comes about because, not because of somebody's narrative of who is right or who is a victim or not. It comes out of the slow melding of the truth to the actual practical life that we end up living. It comes down to the good deed that is practiced with your neighbour, with your local merchants. And I will always have faith that the United States of America and the Western societies that have adopted more or less the same sort of democracy cannot help but turn towards what is right. And they told us how? They were kids, by and large. They were well-practiced. Some of them, you know, years ago, actually on the 65th, which is the last time we were here, I happened to have dinner with the great Andy Rooney, who himself was a veteran. He flew. And he said, oh, come on, they're not all heroes. Some of them were in the 38th Shoe Repair Battalion. And yet, even if you were in a shoe repair battalion, you know, there were guys, if you read Ambrose, there were guys whose job it was, they came to Europe to do one thing and one thing only, to take busted weapons and make them workable again, to take exploded Jeeps, Keitel gave her a bunch of parts in order to get them moving again. Those guys lost as much sleep and had as bad of teeth from the horrible food that they ate and were as exhausted as anybody else was because they woke up every morning and said, what do I have to do in order to further up this cause of liberation? I'm not going to discount anybody for what they went through at that time, even if all they did was type out very, very important papers on a typewriter somewhere well behind the lines. I go back again to that concept. It was the great communal effort. And periodically, in the United States of America, great communal efforts come to be, and they end up changing the world for the people who take part in it and actually want to end up, I can't say it enough, and I probably like a little goody two-shoes, but they do the right thing. And they wake up every morning and they think, what do I need to do today in order to create that more perfect union that always seems to be just slightly out of our grasp, but on the cusp of reality, I like to think. Tom Hanks, thank you so much.