The US president does not bite his tongue when he talks about the Russian leader, whom he accuses of being a dictator, an invader, a murderer and a nuclear danger
Joe Biden, the president of the United States, does not mince words when he refers to his counterpart in Russia, Vladimir Putin, whom he considers a tyrant who has imposed an authoritarian regime on his country, which occupied Ukraine two years ago, who has been singled out by the international community as the culprit behind the recent death of his rival, Aleksei Navalni, and who is now also suspected by American intelligence of wanting to put nuclear weapons in space. Biden called Putin a ‘crazy son of a bitch’ during a campaign fundraiser in San Francisco. It is true that he did not say it literally, but used the abbreviation ‘son of bitch’ (SOB), but the meaning is the same. ‘The last existential threat is the climate. We have a crazy SOB (short for son of a bitch) like this guy, Putin, and others, and we always have to fear nuclear conflicts, but the existential threat to humanity is the climate,’ Biden said.
Biden, an expert on insult
It’s not the first time Biden has spoken of Putin in offensive terms. He has called him a ‘bloodthirsty’ and a ‘war criminal’ on other occasions, but in this case, he used an insult to attack the Russian president, directly and in public. In the past he has been known to have insulted other international leaders in private, such as when, according to NBC News, he called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an ‘idiot’ up to three times, although in public he maintains his support for Israel. Biden’s penchant for insulting those who don’t play his game has also had other episodes in the past, such as when he called Fox News reporter Peter Doocy a ‘stupid son of a bitch’ at a press conference in January 2022 , in response to the journalist’s question about whether he believed that inflation in the United States could be a political weight for his party in the legislative elections that were to be held in November of that year. Biden, of course, later telephoned the journalist to apologize.
Biden has been in the center of attention lately for his constant mistakes and confusions, which have earned him criticism from opponents, who see him as too old (he turned 81 on November 20, 2023) to aspire to re-election, the which has been the subject of discussion in the United States.
Moscow’s reaction
The Kremlin has already reacted, and although it has assured that the insult does not affect Putin, it has warned the President of the United States that he should consult with his advisers and they wonder if, ever, the Russian President has addressed his counterpart in such rude terms. ‘If the president of this country uses this vocabulary, he should be ashamed. It is clear that Mr. Biden shows for internal political reasons an attitude in the style of a Hollywood cowboy,’ said Dmitri Peskov, presidential spokesman, in statements on Russian public television.
Biden’s public insult to Putin comes a week after the Russian president publicly stated in a public television interview that he prefers Biden to Donald Trump as president of the United States because he is more ‘predictable’, which surely it didn’t do the current head of the White House any favors. Conversely, as The Guardian claims, Biden’s verbal attacks against Putin have also suddenly escalated in the White House during the campaign. Last week, the US president blamed Putin and ‘his minions’ for the death of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.
In addition, the conflict between the two countries also recently experienced the accusation by the United States that Russia was planning to deploy nuclear weapons in space to disable American satellites, according to the ABC network, citing sources from intelligence. The indictment stemmed from the warning made by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Mike Turner, that there was a threat to national security, although he did not specify what it was about According to Europa Press, some US officials, including Biden, later explained that the Russian space program was aimed at damaging US satellites, although they acknowledged that they did not have sufficient evidence.
Biden also targets Trump
During the same event, a private meeting with donors for his 2024 re-election campaign in San Francisco, attended by a small group of reporters, Biden also said he was surprised by the recent comments made by the former president and future candidate to take him out of the White House, Donald Trump, comparing himself to Aleksei Navalni. ‘Some of the things that this guy has been saying, like comparing himself to Navalni and saying that our country has become a communist country, and that he has been persecuted, just as Navalni has been persecuted. I don’t know where the hell he gets all that. I’m surprised,’ Biden said.
Trump compared the suspicious death in prison of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalni to his own legal troubles in the United States. The former president was fined $350 million after a New York judge found he lied for years about his wealth on his companies’ financial statements. Trump said the ruling was a form of ‘communism or fascism’.