Cory Booker says he wants to punch an 'elderly' and 'out of shape' President Trump, calls him a 'physically weak specimen'
Sen. Cory Booker, a Democratic presidential candidate in the 2020 race, told host Seth Meyers that his testosterone sometimes drives him to want to punch the "elderly, out of shape" President Trump.
The 50-year-old New Jersey senator made the statement while addressing a question about his appeals for "civic grace" during an appearance on 'Late Night with Seth Meyers', Daily Mail reports.
In response, Booker recounted the story of an interaction he had with a voter in Iowa.
"This guy sees, me—a former tight end from Stanford University—he's a big guy. He puts his arm around me and he goes, 'Dude I want you to punch Donald Trump in the face,'" Booker recalled. "And I stop in my tracks and I go, 'Dude, that's a felony, man.'"
"Donald Trump is a guy who hurts you," he continued. "And my testosterone makes me want to feel like punching him, which would be bad for this elderly, out-of-shape man that he is if I did that."
Despite himself calling Trump "out of shape", Booker goes on to brand him a "body-shamer."
"This physically weak specimen," Booker said of Trump, before beginning to show some restraint.
"But do you see what I'm talking about here? That's his tactics and you don't beat a bully like him, fighting him on his tactics, on his terms, using his turf. He's the body-shamer. He's the guy that tries to drag people in the gutter."
In the past, Trump has often criticized other people's appearances.
During one of the 2016 presidential debates, former presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton slammed him for calling former Miss Universe Alicia Machado "Miss Housekeeping" and "Miss Piggy."
However, the president had a rather straightforward response. "She was the winner and, you know, she gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem," Trump said after the debate.
"This is a moral moment in America," Booker told Meyers. "And, to me, what we need from our next leader, especially at this time of moral vandalism that we're in right now, is we need a leader who's not going to call us to the worst of who we are, but call us to the best of who we are."
"And we need to be as a party, in this moral moment, we need to talk about what necessarily what we're against, but what we're for," he added.
"We will not beat Donald Trump by trying to be more like him, but by showing that we are not like him," Booker concluded. "We are not weak morally, we are not weak mentally. We are a strong nation."