Aviva Fried with AFP / Photo credits: Mandel NGAN / AFP 8:15 a.m., February 22, 2024

A “crazy bastard”, these are the chosen terms that Joe Biden attacked Vladimir Putin during a fundraising evening for his campaign in San Francisco.

The American president is very upset against his Russian counterpart, but also against Donald Trump.

Joe Biden on Wednesday called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "crazy bastard" during a meeting in San Francisco (California) with Democratic Party donors, during which he also virulently attacked his rival Donald Trump.

"The existential threat is climate change. There's that crazy bastard Putin, and others, and you always have to worry about nuclear war, but the existential threat to humanity it’s climate change,” said the 81-year-old Democratic president, candidate for a second term, during a brief speech attended by a small group of journalists.

A shortcut for "son of a bitch"

In English, Joe Biden used the three letters “SOB”, a shortcut for “son of a bitch”, an insult translatable into French as “bastard”, “asshole”, even “son of a bitch”.

He also attacked former President Donald Trump, who will in all probability be his opponent in November, and his reaction to the death in prison of Alexeï Navalny.

>> READ ALSO -

 Russia: who was Alexeï Navalny, symbol of opposition to Vladimir Putin?

The Republican likened his problems with American justice to political persecution and compared his fate to that of the Russian opponent.

“If I had said something like that in front of you 10 or 15 years ago, you all would have thought that I should be forcibly interned,” Joe Biden said.

Biden promises “major” sanctions against Russia

The American president had already, in the past, called his Russian counterpart a “butcher” and a “war criminal.”

He promised to announce “major” sanctions against Russia on Friday in response to the death of Alexei Navalny.

Joe Biden, who has a reputation for swearing easily in private, launched the same insult of "son of a bitch" at a journalist from Fox News, the favorite channel of conservatives, in January 2022, when he thought his microphone turned off.

The AFP then translated the expression as “you bastard”.