Alex Brandon/AP Photo
Activists demonstrate in front of the U.S. Capitol to protest the confirmation vote of then–Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, October 6, 2018.
One of the more vexing developments in the recent news cycle has been the impact, or lack thereof, of the sexual assault charge levied against Joe Biden by his former staffer Tara Reade. In a podcast interview released on March 25, Reade catalogued a series of transgressions by her former boss, and claimed that he touched her in ways that made her feel “like an inanimate object.” She related numerous instances in which Biden sexually harassed or inappropriately touched her, including an encounter in which he allegedly held her against a wall and put his hands up her skirt.
Two weeks later, those allegations, which are extremely serious, haven’t made the waves one might expect. So far, the story has been largely confined to left-wing media. The Biden campaign issued a blanket denial on March 30, with Communications Director Kate Bedingfield saying simply: “Women have the right to tell their story, and reporters have an obligation to rigorously vet those claims. We encourage them to do so, because these accusations are false.” No statement has been made by Biden himself. But more mainstream outlets have yet to take Bedingfield up on the offer.
Yahoo cross-posted write-ups from Refinery29 and Hello Giggles, while Amanda Marcotte at Salon made a tentative foray into poking holes in the allegation. Alyssa Milano, actress and #MeToo popularizer, published an interview on Tuesday where she doubled down on her endorsement of Biden and referred to him as a longtime friend, championed due process (though not calling for an investigation), and claimed “mainstream media would be jumping all over this as well if they found more evidence.” But the major media in the country has largely ignored it. That development is striking.
There may be a number of explanations for this. For one, the allegation’s unveiling on a podcast, hosted by progressive media personality Katie Halper, gives it a different form than other high-profile #MeToo charges. And there may indeed be some contradictory components of Reade’s story, as is often the case with sexual misconduct allegations. With no witnesses, it’s a nearly impossible story to vet, and major media has generally taken great care with determining the reality of these stories (and it is possible they are doing that as we speak).
But even if Reade’s allegation is untrue, or partially untrue, the current approach of the Biden camp and its Democratic operatives, to issue one statement and place the burden on the media to do their invalidating for them, is an extremely short-sighted and ill-advised approach. Whether the Biden campaign likes it or not, Reade’s allegation is certain to factor into the general election, where Trump is likely to harp on it repeatedly, muddying the waters and giving the media something else to fixate on besides his tragic pandemic preparation mistakes that led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. The Biden campaign’s lack of a proactive or meaningful response could look like political malpractice in the not-too-distant future.
This was not Reade’s first public accusation regarding Biden’s conduct toward female colleagues. Last year, several women came forward publicly to say Joe Biden had kissed or touched them in ways that made them uncomfortable—Reade was among them. But the highest-profile accuser at that point was Lucy Flores, a former candidate for lieutenant governor of Nevada, who catalogued in a March 2019 essay for The Cut that Biden had behaved in a sexually inappropriate manner toward her at a campaign event in 2014. Biden eventually cut a video expressing a newfound appreciation for personal space (though Flores herself didn’t see it as an apology).
Flores’s complaint was dismissed by some as being politically motivated, because she supported Bernie Sanders in 2016 (she endorsed Elizabeth Warren in 2020). That same tactic, predictably, has been used with Reade, a Bernie supporter herself (it’s also been pointed out that Reade has lauded Russia and Vladimir Putin, to boot). Meanwhile, observers have pointed out some hypocrisy—some of the most vocal supporters of the “Believe Women” camp that endeavored to prevent Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation turn out to be extremely incredulous when it comes to the women bringing charges against Biden. Tweets from Biden adviser Symone Sanders in support of Christine Blasey Ford have disappeared.
Regardless of the veracity of this explosive yet unconfirmed claim, there’s already ample evidence of Biden’s history of what he now himself describes as inappropriate behavior. Trump’s own record is both more numerous and severe—he has dozens of sexual assault claims, including a high-profile rape allegation from writer E. Jean Carroll.
We already know how Trump will play this come debate time. In 2016, after the infamous Access Hollywood tape leaked, Trump responded not with contrition but by bringing four women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct—Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Kathy Shelton—as guests to his subsequent debate with Hillary Clinton, where they sat in the audience. He will use these strands of claims against Biden as a cover for his own significant sexual assault history, and to break down Biden’s image as a likable, avuncular figure. It will be the ultimate distraction for our chase-the-soccer-ball political media, a “but her emails” moment that they can latch onto, disregarding policy issues or the president’s record. The major outlets have run with far flimsier charges than what Reade has brought. As the last four years have shown, Trump is functionally immune to the charge of hypocrisy.
It may well be that Biden has nothing to atone for in this instance. For many liberals, this charge is as empty as Hillary’s emails, or John Kerry’s military record in Vietnam. But the Biden camp’s lack of action thus far, which mirrors the approach of John Kerry’s campaign amid the “Swift Boat” allegations that he didn’t deserve his medals in Vietnam, should sound alarm bells, even for the greatest of Reade skeptics. The Kerry campaign, of course, issued a curt denial and failed to go any further, fearing that they would give the charges oxygen. Predictably, those charges escalated with dizzying wall-to-wall coverage, and the public got a mostly one-sided account of the allegations with Kerry refusing to address them head-on. It may well have sunk his campaign. Up against a ruthless opponent, in an election cycle with more than one thing in common with 2004, a two-line denial, silence, and hope that the media will fix up the situation will probably not cut it.
Biden will have to answer these questions eventually, and once it comes out of Trump’s mouth, the media is guaranteed to cover it. The longer Biden waits, the more power he gives over to Trump to dictate the terms.
