Former Democratic Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe had some fighting words for President Donald Trump. Literally.

Thursday on Hardball, Chris Matthews discussed Trump’s methods of “intimidating his opponents” from coming up with nicknames like “Low Energy Jeb” and “Little Marco,” to “leaning over” people like he did with Hillary Clinton during the town hall debate.

“What would you do in a debate with him if he tried that?” Matthews asked the former governor. “If he came over and leaned over back at you, what would you do?”

“You would have to pick him up off the floor,” McAuliffe responded, causing the MSNBC host to laugh.

When Matthews clarified that McAuliffe would “deck him,” the governor elaborated.

“Listen, if this guy got in my space, you wanna get in my space, I’ve always said Chris, you punch me, I’m going to punch back twice as hard,” McAuliffe said. “And it wouldn’t be hard to do it, but you know, this guy thinks he could intimidate everybody. It’s disgrace. It’s embarrassing. But I’ll tell ya, when we take him on back in his face with the facts, don’t take anything from him and hit 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.”

Watch the clip above, via MSNBC.

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