President Joe Biden arrived on Air Force One in Colorado Springs on Wednesday evening ahead of his address Thursday at the Air Force Academy graduation.

Air Force One touched down shortly before 6 p.m. at Peterson Space Force Base, where he was greeted by Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet along with military officers, including the commander of NORAD, Gen. Glen VanHerck.

Suthers and Bennet walked with Biden across the tarmac to a small crowd where the president paused to talk.

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The motorcade also pulled over near the Air Force Thunderbirds, the demonstration squadron that will put on an air show at the graduation.

Biden will speak to more than 900 academy graduates and a crowd that in the past has been around 30,000 at Falcon Stadium.

Biden, who has announced his 2024 reelection campaign, previously spoke at graduation during his two terms as vice president, the first in 2009 and again in 2014, where he challenged graduating Air Force Academy cadets to help create a “new world order for the 21st century.”

During the speech in 2014, he discussed administration plans to leave nearly 10,000 troops in Afghanistan and made several references to Russian aggression, restating a U.S. guarantee of a democratic Ukraine – topics that still hold weight nine years later.

The speech on Thursday will arrive a little over a year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has received aid from the U.S. in recent months. The commencement will also occur as the nation approaches the two-year anniversary of completely withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in August 2021.

Biden’s arrival in El Paso County comes amid an ongoing fight over U.S. Space Command headquarters between contenders Colorado Springs and Huntsville, Ala.

Colorado Springs officials and members of the state’s congressional delegation have worked for more than two years to reverse an order by President Donald Trump for U.S. Space Command to move from Colorado Springs to the Alabama city in January 2021, or at least to have the headquarters location process reopened.

2023 Air Force Academy graduation details