Biden calls Putin a ‘crazy SOB’ and blasts Trump’s Navalny comments as he campaigns in California

Kremlin rebukes president for ‘rude’ statement about Russian leader

Joe Biden has hit out at Russian leader Vladimir Putin in the wake of the death of opposition politician Alexei Navalny last week, also chastising Donald Trump for comparing his own legal affairs to the dissident’s tragic fate.

Speaking at a fundraising event in San Francisco, California, on Wednesday evening, President Biden told his audience: “We have a crazy SOB [son of a b****], that guy, Putin, others. And we always have to be worried about a nuclear conflict. But the existential threat to humanity is climate.”

According to CNN, the Kremlin has already reacted angrily to the comment, with Mr Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov calling the president’s “rude” remarks “a huge disgrace” to the White House and adding: “Clearly, Mr Biden is demonstrating behaviour in the style of a Hollywood cowboy to cater to domestic political interests.”

Recounting Mr Trump’s self-serving and shocking comparison of his own legal “persecution” with Navalny’s suspicious death in an Arctic prison, the president said at the same event: “He’s comparing himself to Navalny and saying that because our country’s become a communist country, he was persecuted, just like Navalny was persecuted.

“Where the hell does this come from?” he asked in exasperation.

“If I stood here 10 to 15 years ago and said all this, you’d all think I should be committed… It’s astounding.”

The Republican frontrunner, who is vying for a return to the White House with four criminal indictments and 91 felony charges hanging over his head, waited three days before commenting on Navalny’s passing, finally doing so on Monday but only to cast himself as a victim.

“The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country,” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“It is a slow, steady progression, with CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction.

“Open Borders, Rigged Elections, and Grossly Unfair Courtroom Decisions are DESTROYING AMERICA. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE, A FAILING NATION! MAGA2024.”

Tributes have been paid to Alexei Navalny across the world since his death was announced (AP)

By contrast, when the news first broke last Friday, President Biden called a press conference and paid an emotional tribute to Navalny, saying that he “bravely stood up to the corruption, the violence and all the bad things that Putin’s government was doing”.

He continued: “In response, Putin had him poisoned. He had him arrested and prosecuted for fabricated crimes [then]... sent to prison and held in isolation.

“Even in prison, he was a powerful voice for the truth.”

On Navalny’s brave decision to return to Russia after he was poisoned with Novichok on a domestic flight in August 2020 and taken to Germany for treatment, President Biden said that the activist knew all too well what was likely to happen to him but “did it anyway, because he believed so deeply in his country and Russia”.

He concluded: “Make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. What happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality.”

US vice-president, Kamala Harris and secretary of state, Antony Blinken also joined world leaders in paying respects to the imprisoned dissident that day while attending the Munich Security Conference, stating unequivocally: “Russia is responsible.”

Former House speaker, Nancy Pelosi was also at that event, where she met Navalny’s grieving widow, Yulia Navalnaya, and returned to take Mr Trump to task for his crass intervention, calling the Republican candidate Mr Putin’s “buddy in vileness” on MSNBC and saying that his post about Navalny “shows you he is a person without values” and that his remarks had been “beneath the dignity of a human being” to express.

It has since emerged that Navalny mentioned the prospect of a second Trump administration in a letter to a friend from his prison cell, describing it as a “really scary” outcome for the United States.