Just hours after saying he’s done talking about Donald Trump, Vice President Joe Biden returned to his comment that if he were back in high school he would “take him behind the gym” to presumably fight him.
Biden, during a campaign stop in Toledo, Ohio, at first acted as if he didn’t want to talk about Trump.
“What can you say about Donald Trump … he’s disqualified himself so much,” Biden said.
“I’m not going to say anymore,” Biden declared. “I’ll get myself in trouble and say something like I’d like to take him behind the gym when I was in high school.”
“All kidding aside, wouldn’t you — I mean for real?” he asked the audience.
He appeared to go on to characterize Hillary Clinton as a high school girl that someone has to protect against a bully.
“Can you imagine some guy in the locker room talking that way and your sister is out there watching a game?” he said.
He then tried to clarify that he was not trying to say he really wanted to fight Trump or incite violence.
“I understand what assault is,” he said. “I said if I were in high school — I would if I were in high school, but I’m not. I used to have a temper in high school, but I don’t anymore. Nothing ever bothers me.”
Before deciding to repeat his comments from last week, he seemed exasperated by some of Trump’s recent comments.
“Can you imagine any president that’s ever lived, assuming they had the technology, getting up at 3:30 in the morning and tweeting nasty things about a beauty queen that had gained weight?” he asked.
“Can you imagine that when a coalition has been planning for several months [to launch an offensive in Iraq], saying that they are now attacking Mosul because of Hillary to make her look strong?” he asked.
Biden tried to temper his remarks about the GOP nominee earlier Monday during a surprise stop at Clinton’s Cleveland campaign office.
“We all know the nightmare of a Trump presidency,” Biden said. “I’ve given up on talking about Trump.
“Hillary’s going to win this election,” he quickly added, to applause.
On Friday, Biden made headlines for saying during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania that he finds Trump so repugnant, especially his bragging about groping women, that he wished he were back in high school so he could slug him.
“The press always asks 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.”
Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and pollster Frank Luntz took to Twitter to accuse the media of failing to hold Biden accountable for his violent remark.
“Had Trump said this, it would be hair-on-fire #breakingnews with ‘violence’ and ‘bully’ trending, high school psychologists on TV panels,” she tweeted.
