After weeks of silence, Joe Biden denied sexual assault accusations from a former Senate staffer publicly for the first time Friday: « No, it is not true. …
After weeks of silence, Joe Biden denied sexual assault accusations from a former Senate staffer publicly for the first time Friday: « No, it is not true. I’m saying unequivocally it did not happen, » he said.
But it’s unclear whether the presumptive Democratic nominee’s interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe did enough to extinguish the controversy as allies of President Donald Trump seize on the allegation.
By opposing the release of records stored at the University of Delaware – he says the school’s collection doesn’t contain personnel records – Biden might have provided more fuel for Republicans to keep the issue alive, experts said.
Still, even after the rise of the #MeToo movement, not all political experts are convinced the allegation will hurt Biden, despite him needing strong support among suburban women to beat Trump in November.
« For many years, these sorts of allegations would kill off a candidacy, partly because people didn’t know all the gory details about everybody else, » said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. « That’s gone. »
Sabato pointed to the multiple sexual assault allegations against Trump and the infamous video where Trump describes grabbing women’s genitals that came out one month before the November election. Trump, who has denied all allegations related to sexual impropriety, won the presidency.
« It tells you it doesn’t matter, » Sabato said. « What makes that even more true is the pandemic and the economic collapse. That’s all people care about. They’re focused on what’s happening in their lives, and right now it’s a disaster. »
Tara Reade, a former Biden Senate staffer, has alleged that while bringing a gym bag to Biden in a Capitol Hill office building in 1993, Biden pushed her against a wall, groped her and digitally penetrated her without consent. She was 29 years old at the time.
The allegation has gained increasing media coverage since Reade discussed them in a March podcast, and comes at a time when Biden leads most national and swing-state polls, while Trump has had to defend his reaction to the coronavirus pandemic.
Former President Bill Clinton, like Trump, was not thwarted by sexual misconduct allegations that arose during his re-election bid. But complicating things for Biden: He’s a Democrat running in the #MeToo era, where top Democrats and liberals have said women should be believed when they come forward with sexual assault claims.
Biden was among the Democrats who came to the defense of Christine Blasey Ford when in 2018 she accused Brett Kavanaugh, then a nominee for the Supreme Court, of sexually assaulting her decades ago. Kavanaugh was eventually confirmed and now sits on the high court. In the MSNBC interview Friday, Biden didn’t directly answer a question about the difference between Ford’s allegation and Reade’s.
« (Women) should start off with a presumption they’re telling the truth, » Biden said. « Then you have to look at the circumstances and the facts. And the facts in this case do not exist. They never happened.”
Political experts said Reade’s allegation could complicate Biden’s support among two crucial voting blocs – liberals who backed U. S.
