Another woman has come forward about former Vice President Joe Biden’s touching.
In a piece published in Slate on Monday, Lilly Jay wrote Biden was overly touchy with her while the then-college student was speaking at a White House event in 2014 as a survivor of sexual assault. She said she still doesn’t know how to feel about it.
“When he came to the stage, he leaned in and gave me coffee-scented words of encouragement. Then he held my hand and pointed at me as he said something to the crowd,” Jay wrote.
“The feeling of questioning my own experience was a familiar one,” she added. “Why hadn’t I been more aware of Biden’s contact with me? Why didn’t it occur to me to be perturbed? Why had I so quickly discredited my annoyance at having to hold hands with him like I was a little girl?”
Several women have come out in the past two weeks to say Biden made them feel uncomfortable on a number of occasions, starting with Nevada politician Lucy Flores coming forward with her story of an unwelcome kiss by Biden in 2014. Biden responded with a video over Twitter saying that he would be more mindful about personal space but made light of the accusations in D.C. on Friday.
Jay said she took more offense to the joking and lack of an apology.
“It wasn’t until that ‘sorry not sorry’ video and his jokes about seeking permission before touching people that I realized I had been privately rooting for Biden,” she wrote. “I was willing to reserve judgment and embrace the ambiguity of Biden’s physical contact — to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I don’t know how much longer I can make space for him to do the right thing and own up to his missteps.”
Biden is widely expected to join the Democratic race for the presidency in the coming weeks. He has roughly 29.9% support, putting him in first place among the crowded field of candidates vying for the party’s 2020 nomination, according to RealClearPolitics’ average of polls.
[Opinion: The Joe Biden touching brouhaha has nothing to do with ‘believe all women’]
