SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 22, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - President Joe Biden called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a "crazy SOB" at a public fundraising event Wednesday in California.

"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 in a brief speech at the event in San Francisco that was attended by a small group of reporters.

In a hot mic slip in January 2022, Biden similarly called a Fox News journalist a "son of a bitch."

Biden's burst of strong language follows other occasions in which he has called the Russian president, who ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a "butcher" and a "war criminal."

Biden has said the United States will announce a package of tough new sanctions Friday against Russia over the death in prison of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

At the fundraising event, Biden also attacked his presumed November election rival Donald Trump for comparing his legal woes to the fate of Navalny.

"If I stood here 10 to 15 years ago and said all this, you'd all think I should be committed," Biden said.