Trump: I would love to fight ‘Mr. Tough Guy,’ Joe Biden
Vice President Joe Biden said last week that he wishes he were in high school and could take Donald Trump “behind the gym,” in a response to the groping allegations against the GOP nominee.
Trump said Tuesday that he would “love that.”
“Did you see where Biden wants to take me to the the back of the barn? Me. I’d love that,” the Republican nominee said at a rally in Tallahassee, Fla. “Mr. Tough Guy. You know, he’s Mr. Tough Guy. You know when he’s Mr. Tough Guy? When he’s standing behind a microphone by himself. … Some things in life you could really love doing.”
At a rally for Hillary Clinton in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Friday, Biden said Trump’s “disgusting assertion” that he could kiss and touch women without their consent — caught on a hot mic in a recently unearthed, explosive 2005 video — was “the textbook definition of sexual assault.”
“The press always ask me, ‘Don’t I wish I were debating him?’ No, I wish we were in high school — I could take him behind the gym,” Biden said. “That’s what I wish.”
On Monday, the 73-year-old clarified his remarks, saying he would’ve wanted to fight Trump in high school, but not now.
“If I were in high school,” Biden said. “I want to make it clear I understand what assault is. I’m not in high school. If I were in high school.”
I'm trying to envision something more fitting than this election actually ending in a Biden-Trump fist fight and i cannot
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 26, 2016
Trump, 70, has made no such distinction with other people he’s seen as his political foes.
Earlier this year, Trump said he wanted to punch a protester who was being escorted from one of his events in the face.
“There’s a guy, totally disruptive, throwing punches — we’re not allowed to punch back anymore,” Trump said at a February rally in Las Vegas. “I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher.”
He added: “I’d like to punch him in the face.”
And in 2014 interviews recorded by a biographer and published by the New York Times Tuesday, the brash real estate mogul recalled his love of fighting as a child.
“I was a very rebellious kind of person,” Trump said. “I loved to fight. I always loved to fight.”
“Physical fights?” the interviewer asked.
“Yeah, all kinds of fights, physical,” he replied. “All types of fights. Any kind of fight, I loved it, including physical.”