President Joe Biden holds a high-stakes summit with President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday at what the leaders agree is a “low point” in the U.S.-Russia relationship.
The two men will face off inside an 18th-century Swiss villa in Geneva, situated alongside a lake in the middle of the Parc de la Grange. The fifth American president to sit down with Putin, Biden has spoken with him and met him before, in 2016.
MORE: What Putin wants when he meets Biden this week
Having called Putin a “killer” and saying he’s told him before he has no “soul,” Biden told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega on Monday that he also recalled the Russian leader as being “bright” and “tough.”
“And I have found that he is a — as they say, when you used to play ball — a worthy adversary,” he said.
iden’s ‘watch me’ comment raises stakes ahead of Putin summit: The Note
Amid all the high-level shadow boxing setting up President Joe Biden’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden has added a new wrinkle — one that amounts to a test for himself that awaits him back home.
Biden has cast this moment in the world community in broad terms for the United States — a chance to assert the power of democratic nations in the face of challenges from China and Russia in particular. Asked Monday what he is telling allies who may be worried about any American slide toward autocracy, Biden again went big.
“What I’m saying to them is, watch me,” Biden said. “That’s why it’s so important that I succeed in my agenda.”
