Former Vice President Joe Biden jokingly said he would challenge President Donald Trump to a push-up contest if Trump were to attack Biden’s mental state or age during a debate.
“I would say, come on Donald, come on, man. How many push-ups do you want to do here, pal? I mean jokingly,” the Democratic candidate for President said during an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” this week. “You know, come on, run with me, man.”
Watch a clip from the interview here:
“I find it difficult to call them debates when you have one minute and it’s so easy to take out of context,” Biden said when initially asked about preparing for the next debate.
“Are you ready to fight this guy who doesn’t play fair,” asked Mika Brzezinski, referring to President Trump. “… What’s your strategy?”
“I’m used to bullies,” Biden said, later adding, “I’m not backing down at all from him [Donald Trump].”
Brzezinski then asks, “But what do you do, you make it to the general, you’re on the debate stage, he’s lying, he’s saying we’re doing great … He starts making fun of your age, your mental state.”
That’s when Biden responded jokingly about the push-up contest.
This is not the first time Biden, 76, has talked about getting physical with Trump, 73.
“A guy who ended up becoming our national leader said, ‘I can grab a woman anywhere and she likes it,’” Biden said at an anti-sexual assault rally at the University of Miami in March 2018. “They asked me if I’d like to debate this gentleman, and I said ‘no.’ I said, ‘If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.’”
“I’ve been in a lot of locker rooms my whole life,” Biden said. “I’m a pretty damn good athlete. Any guy that talked that way was usually the fattest, ugliest S.O.B. [son of a bit*h] in the room.”
President Trump fired back at Biden over the comments, tweeting at the time, ““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!”
That was not the first time Biden had gone after Trump and insinuated he would physically harm the President.
In 2016, Biden, while campaigning for Hillary Clinton, said: “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. That’s what I wish.”
