A supporter of Joe Biden (D) on Thursday ganged up on the town hall attendee who highlighted the former vice president’s role in Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine, coming up behind him and telling him to “get out of here.”
“Why don’t you just get out of here?” a man, believed to be a Biden supporter, said to the attendee who sparred with the presidential hopeful.
“Stick it up your ass, fella,” he retorted, adding, “You want to throw me out?”
“You’re the one who started the uproar, not me,” the Biden supporter said as the heated discussion escalated.
“It’s a free country. I can say what I want,” he shot back:
A clip of Biden’s tense exchange with a town hall attendee in Iowa went viral on Thursday, sparked by an attendee who told Biden he was “selling access to the president” with his son’s role on the board of Burisma Holdings. He also expressed concerns over Biden’s age:
We all know Trump has been messing around in Ukraine over there holding their foreign aid for them to come up saying they are going to investigate you. We all know about that.
…
But you, on the other hand, sent your son over there to get a job and work for a gas company that he had no experience with gas or nothing in order to get access for the president. So you are selling access to the president just like he was.
“You’re a damn liar, man. That’s not true. And no one has ever said that,” Biden said, essentially challenging the man to a push-up contest and, at one point, seemingly calling him “fat.”
The exchange continued:
The voter added, “I see it on the TV.”
Biden said, “You see it on the TV. No, I know you do. And by the way, I’m not sedentary. I get up … Let him go. Let him go. Look, the reason I’m running is because I’ve been around a long time, and I know more than most people know, and I can get things done. That’s why I’m running. You want to check my shape on let’s do push-ups together, let’s run, let’s do whatever you want to do number one. Number two no one has said my son did anything wrong and I did not on any occasion—”
The voter said, “I didn’t say you were doing anything wrong.”
Biden said, “You said I set my son up to work at an oil company. Isn’t that want you said? Get your words straight jack.”
The voter said, “That’s what I hear on MSNBC.”
Biden said, “You don’t hear that on MSNBC.”
The voter said, “The hell I do.”
Biden said, “Look, I’m not going to get in an argument with you.”
The voter said, “I don’t want to either.”
Biden said, “Well yeah you do but look, fat, here’s the deal—”
The voter added, “It looks like you don’t have any more backbone than Trump does.”
Biden’s campaign quickly jumped into damage control mode, claiming that Biden did not call the man “fat.”
“To be clear: Any assertion VP Biden said a word about the gentleman’s appearance is making this something it is not. In the latter part of the exchange, the VP began to say ‘Look, facts’ then said ‘here’s the deal,’” Symone Sanders, a senior adviser to Biden said: