At a campaign event in Pennsylvania last week, Vice President Biden made no effort to contain his disgust with Donald Trump, following the release a recording in which the Republican boasted about sexual assault. “The press always asks me, don’t I wish I were debating him?” Biden told the audience. “No, I wish we were in high school, and I could take him behind the gym. That’s what I wish.”It took a few days, but the GOP nominee heard about Biden’s rhetoric and responded at a rally in Florida last night.
Trump remembered the comments slightly differently — he said, “did you see Biden wants to take me to the back of the barn?” — but wasn’t deterred by the sentiment behind them.”I’d love that,” he said of the idea of the two grown men tussling as if they were high schoolers. “Oh, some things in life you could really love doing,” Trump added.Trump attacked Biden as a “Mr. Tough Guy when he’s standing behind a microphone by himself.”
For what it’s worth, I don’t think any of this posturing does anyone any good, and Biden shouldn’t have started this pointless spat. He’s clearly an emotional guy who wears his heart on his sleeve, and at a certain level it may seem understandable that Biden would respond to Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape in a candid way, but he’s a sitting vice president. Biden shouldn’t be talking publicly about his desire to beat up a major-party presidential nominee.Having said that, if there were some kind of showdown between Biden and Trump, history is on the Democrat’s side: vice presidents have an undefeated record in these kinds of violent confrontations.
The Burr–Hamilton duel was fought between prominent American politicians Aaron Burr, the sitting Vice President of the United States, and Alexander Hamilton, the former Secretary of the Treasury, at Weehawken, New Jersey on July 11, 1804. The duel was the culmination of a long and bitter rivalry between the two men. Burr shot and mortally wounded Hamilton, who was carried to the home of William Bayard on the Manhattan shore, where he died the next day with his wife and sister-in-law at his side.
As for how “take him behind the gym” became “take me to the back of the barn,” I have no idea.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."