Sherman: Biden calling Putin a ‘crazy SOB’ OK for campaign trail, not diplomatic discussion

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) criticized comments by President Biden on Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview Thursday.

“Perhaps appropriate for the campaign trail, not appropriate for diplomatic discussion,” Sherman, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said about Biden’s comments during an interview with anchor Blake Burman on “The Hill on NewsNation.”

The president called Putin a “crazy SOB,” using the acronym for “son of a bitch,” at a fundraiser Wednesday in San Francisco when talking about climate change.

“This is the last existential threat: It is climate. We have a crazy SOB like that guy Putin, and others, and we always have to worry about nuclear conflict, but the existential threat to humanity is climate,” Biden said.

Sherman, however, did say Biden is “communicating with the American people, and that’s the way the American people oughta see it.”

Biden’s comments also followed the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which he has blamed on Putin.

“Reports of his death, if they’re true, and I have no reasons to believe they’re not — Russian authorities are going to tell their own story,” Biden said in remarks from the White House.

“But make no mistake: Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. Putin is responsible. What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality. No one should be fooled,” he continued.

The Kremlin hit back at Biden for the “SOB” comment Thursday, saying he was trying “to look like a Hollywood cowboy.”

“The use of such language against the head of another state by the president of the United States is unlikely to infringe on our president, President Putin,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Reuters. “But it debases those who use such vocabulary.”

“The Hill” show on NewsNation airs Monday to Friday at 6 p.m. EST.

NewsNation is a cable news channel launched in 2021 by Nexstar Media Group, which owns and operates dozens of local television stations across the country and purchased The Hill in fall 2021.