Biden garners big applause from U.S. troops in U.K. with tough talk ahead of Putin meeting

President Biden stirred up a crowd of U.S. troops stationed in the United Kingdom on Wednesday with some tough talk directed at Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom he'll meet face-to-face next week.

Biden, who's on his first overseas trip as president, made his way to the U.K. earlier in the day, and he broke down his multi-day agenda for the American soldiers who greeted him at Royal Air Force Mildenhall, telling them he's heading to a Group of Seven meeting in England and then a NATO summit in Brussels. Finally, he said, he'll travel to Switzerland to "meet with Mr. Putin to let him know what I want him to know." That's when the soldiers erupted into cheers.

"At every point along the way, we're gonna make it clear the United States is back and democracies of the world are standing together to tackle the toughest challenges," he continued as the noise died down, re-upping one of his more frequent slogans.

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Biden shed a little more light on his administration's attitude toward the Kremlin, as well, noting "the United States will respond in a robust and meaningful way when the Russian government engages in harmful activities." "I'm going to communicate that there are consequences for ... violating the sovereignty of democracies," he said.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.