McAuliffe: You Would Have to Pick Trump Up Off The Floor If He Came Near Me in a Debate

Thursday on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) said if President Donald Trump tried to invade his space at a debate, you would have to “pick him up off the floor.”

Partial transcript as follows:

MATTHEWS: Back to Trump, what he does is he seems to have an ability to intimidate his opponents. He takes people who are levelheaded, like Jeb Bush, and makes them look weak. He says, low-energy Jeb, and it works. He refers to somebody as “little Marco” because he’s not as tall as he is, he finds anybody’s weakness and turns it into something that destroys his opponent. I know Hillary’s a friend of yours and she’s a strong person, but he did that thing of leaning over her, in that weird Godzilla way, in a debate. What would you do in a debate with him if he tried that? What would you do?

MCAULIFFE: You would have to pick him up off the floor.

MATTHEWS [ laughing ] Okay, okay, you mean, you’d deck him?

MCAULIFFE: Listen, if this guy got in my space, you want to get in my space, I’ve always said, Chris, I’ll punch you back twice as hard. And it wouldn’t be hard to do it. This guy thinks he can intimidate everybody. It’s disgraceful and embarrassing. But I tell you, when we take him on, back in his face with the facts, don’t take anything from him and hit him back as hard as you possibly can. But if he ever came over and leaned on me and got in my space, that would be the last time Donald Trump ever did that, I promise you that.

MATTHEWS: You sound like an Irish-American politician.

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