McAuliffe Says He’d Slug Trump: ‘You Would Have To Pick Him Up Off the Floor’

Outgoing Virginia governor and possible 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Terry McAuliffe said he would beat up President Trump if he ever invaded his space during a debate.

McAuliffe, responding to a question about how he would handle Trump's "Godzilla like" invasion of Hillary Clinton's space during a debate, said he would "deck him."

"You would have to pick him up off the floor," McAuliffe said in an interview on MSNBC Thursday night. If "this guy got in my space, you want to get in my space, I’ve always said, Chris, you punch me, I’m going to 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."

"Hardball" host Chris Matthews predicted his warning to Trump would "go viral."

Here's a transcript of the exchange: 

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 is 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: "Okay. Okay, you mean, you’d deck him?" 
McAULIFFE: "Listen, this guy got in my space, you want to get in my space, I’ve always said, Chris, you punch me, I’m going to 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. Terry McAuliffe, thank you for coming on 'Hardball' tonight. What a performance. That will go down — that will go viral, sir, I can tell you."

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