Former Vice President Joe Biden recently walked back comments he made about President Donald Trump, saying he wouldn’t “want to get down in the mosh pit with this guy.”
During an anti-sexual assault rally at the University of Miami last Tuesday, Biden had called out President Trump on his past derogatory comments about women, saying he would have “beat the hell” out of Trump if the two were in high school together.
The Free Beacon reported that, in an interview over the weekend on the “Pod Save American” podcast, Biden admitted he should not have said what he said about the President.
The original fighting words came during a fiery speech in which Biden referenced Trump’s comments from old “Access Hollywood” TV show tapes that were leaked toward the end of the 2016 President election.
“When a guy who ended up becoming our national leader said, ‘I can grab a woman anywhere and she likes it,’ … they asked me would I like to debate this gentleman, and I said no,” Biden said. “I said, ‘If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.'”
During the “Pod Save American” podcast, the hosts brought up Biden’s comments and started off jokingly listing potential titles for a Biden-Trump duel, though the former Vice President was quick to backtrack on his threats.
“I think they’re all good, guys, but what I did say was – the way this came up, and I shouldn’t have said what I said,” Biden said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up again because I don’t want to get down in the mosh pit with this guy.”
On Trump defending his remarks as “locker room talk,” Biden added: “I’ve been in a lot of locker rooms my whole life. I’m a pretty damn good athlete. Any guy who talked that way was usually the fattest, ugliest S.O.B. in the room.”
Trump was quick to call out Biden’s most recent speech with a tweet that acknowledged Biden’s second physical assault threat.
Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy. Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault. He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Don’t threaten people Joe!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2018
Biden also said that this comments should not have been taken literally, and he has no intention of any sort of physical contest with the president.
“Now the idea that I would actually physically get in a contest with the President of the United States or anybody else now is not what I said, and it’s not what this was about,” Biden said. “The truth of the matter is I find the behavior, the talk vulgar. I find it degrading. And I think what it does, it does encourage the minority element of a male population to think it’s OK to engage in the behavior the President talks about.”
“Women are entitled to be treated with respect, damnit,” Biden added.
