SAN FRANCISCO– At a fundraiser for his re-election campaign Wednesday night, President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “crazy SOB” and took aim at former President Donald Trump’s comments comparing himself to the Russian opposition leader who died last week in a prison in the Arctic.
Biden was talking about climate change when he said, “We have a crazy SOB like Putin and others, and we always have to worry about nuclear conflict, but the existential threat to humanity is the climate.”
Biden spoke to donors at a private home in San Francisco on Wednesday as part of a three-day California swing to raise money for his 2024 re-election campaign and also said he was surprised by his likely Republican challenger’s recent comments.
Trump compared the suspicious prison death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to his own legal troubles in the US. Trump was fined $350 million after a New York judge found he had lied about his wealth for years on his companies’ financial statements. Trump said the statement was a form of “communism or fascism.”
“Some of the things this guy has said, like he compares himself to Navalny and says that because our country became a communist country, he was persecuted, just like Navalny was persecuted. I don’t know where this came from,” Biden said.
“I mean, if I stood here ten, fifteen years ago and said all this, you’d all think I should be committed,” he said. “It surprises me.”
“I’ve been around a long time and I’ve never seen a crowd like this MAGA Republican crowd,” Biden added, referencing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. “They seem to have very little moral compass about what is important to people.”
At a campaign fundraiser in Beverly Hills on Tuesday night, Biden highlighted his efforts to help middle-class Americans and warned that a November victory for Trump could lead to a nationwide abortion ban. Barack Obama’s administration and more policies that would disproportionately help the wealthy.
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Long reported from Washington.