Washington, Feb 6 (IANS): US President Joe Biden, known to be soft-spoken, went raging and stated he had to hold back his "Irish temper" when his predecessor Donald Trump reportedly described fallen soldiers in unseemly words.

Hitting out at Trump for purportedly calling fallen soldiers "suckers and losers", Biden told a wealthy donors fundraising dinner at Las Vegas in Nevada that he did not know what he would have done if he had been around Trump in Washington that day. Biden had lost his son in the war against Iraq.

"I have to hold my Irish temper. I'm glad I wasn't with him. I'm not sure what I would've done. He had said they're all suckers and losers," Biden said addressing wealthy donors at the fundraiser in Las Vegas on Sunday ahead of the Nevada primaries.

Mentioning his son Beau, who served in the Delaware National Guard in Iraq before he died in 2015, the President got animated: "My son was not a sucker nor were any of yours. Who does this guy think he is talking about Americans?"

During a rally in Las Vegas' Historic Westside, Biden repeated a similar version of the speech, telling the crowd: "This is the guy, when he was in France; they asked him to go to an American cemetery in France for World War II, where Americans were buried. You know what he said? He said those folks were suckers and losers."

"Called my son and your sons and daughters who gave their lives in this country suckers and losers. That's how this guy thinks. Who the hell does he think he is?" Biden said.