Biden on Trump: I Know How to Deal With Bullies

'I'd smack him in the mouth'
By Patrick Spain,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 5, 2019 8:44 AM CDT
Biden on Trump: I Know How to Deal With Bullies
Joe Biden greets supporters before walking in the Independence Fourth of July parade, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Independence, Iowa.   (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Before he was a candidate, Joe Biden criticized President Trump's "locker room talk" and said he would have "beat the hell out of him" had the two gone to high school together. In a new interview with CNN, Biden the candidate continues the theme. "He's the bully that I knew my whole life," Biden tells Chris Cuomo. "He's the bully that I've always stood up to. He's the bully that used to make fun when I was a kid that I stutter, and I'd smack him in the mouth." He also referenced a moment during the Trump-Clinton debates when Trump walked behind Hillary Clinton as she spoke. "I'm looking forward to this man," says Biden. "You walk behind me in the debate. Come here, man."

The Hill sees Biden's comments as part of his strategy to keep the focus on Trump and the general election, rather than on Biden's many Democratic rivals for the nomination. On the latter front, however, Biden said he wasn't expecting Sen. Kamala Harris to come at him over his civil rights record at the first debate. "I was prepared for them to come after me, but I wasn't prepared for the person coming at me the way she came at me," says Biden. He again defended his record and said his decades-old position on busing and segregation had been taken out of context. (More Joe Biden 2020 stories.)

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