What Joe Biden Didn’t Say in His Tara Reade Denial
“I’m saying unequivocally: It never, never happened.”
In an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe today, former Vice President Joe Biden firmly denied allegations from a former Senate aide, Tara Reade, that he sexually assaulted her in 1993. In the month since Reade made her allegation in a podcast interview, the press has slowly begun to cover the story. Most recently, Business Insider interviewed Reade’s former neighbor, who says Reade told her about the alleged attack in the mid-’90s. Although Biden’s aides have aggressively challenged Reade’s claims, today was the first time Biden has responded directly to them.
Biden’s strategy is clear. He maintains that the assault never happened. He is also openly inviting reporters to investigate Reade’s claims, clearly betting that the media will cast doubt on her story and provide supporting evidence for his denial. In the interview and in a statement today, Biden called on the National Archives to find and release any complaint that Reade made against him in 1993. Although Reade said she filed a complaint with the Senate, Biden does not believe such a complaint exists: “I’m confident there is nothing,” he told Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski. “No one ever brought it to the attention of me 27 years ago,” and the staff who worked in his Senate office at the time also never saw it, he added. “If it’s there, put it out, but I have never seen it. No one has that I’m aware of.”
Reade’s allegations put Biden in a bind. His past behavior, including against then–Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991, and in ways that make them feel uncomfortable, has dogged his campaign for president. Partly in response, Biden has sold himself as a champion of women, pointing to his work on the Violence Against Women Act in the Senate and the Obama administration. When Christine Blasey Ford alleged that then–Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had assaulted her at a party in high school and the Senate subsequently held hearings on her claims, Biden expressed enthusiastic support for Ford. “It takes enormous courage for a woman to come forward, under the bright lights of millions of people watching, and relive something that happened to her,” . She “should be given the benefit
