President Trump’s reelection campaign isn’t shying away from hitting Joe Biden over his handling of allegations that he sexually assaulted and harassed a former Senate aide in 1993.
The incumbent’s campaign team, in particular, seized on accusations of hypocrisy over how the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee and other prominent members of the party supported the women who made sexual misconduct claims against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and their reaction to Biden’s accuser, Tara Reade.
“The double standard exhibited by Biden, prominent liberal women’s groups, and Democrat elected officials — some of whom want to be Biden’s running mate — is glaring and cannot be allowed to stand,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Erin Perrine wrote in a statement.
Perrine added, “There will be a great temptation among Biden’s supporters to take his lackluster interview performance and declare ‘case closed’ and move on. We do not know what, if anything, was done to Tara Reade, but there cannot be one set of rules for Joe Biden and another set for everyone else.”
Perrine’s statement was released at the same time as a new digital advertisement featuring comments on the #MeToo movement by 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Kamala Harris of California, among others. The almost two-minute video also includes footage of the two-term vice president and 36-year Delaware senator seeming to make Delaware Sen. Chris Coons’s daughter uncomfortable during his 2015 swearing-in ceremony.
The Trump campaign’s offensive is in reaction to Biden, 77, addressing Reade’s allegations directly and publicly for the first time Friday morning. In an interview with MSNBC, he reiterated remarks shared just before his appearance, vehemently denying the 56-year-old’s claims that he forcibly kissed her and penetrated her with his fingers, as well as inappropriately touched her hair and neck.
“They aren’t true. This never happened,” Biden wrote in the statement.
In the nationally televised spot, Biden appeared to struggle to explain why Reade’s claims were different from those of Kavanaugh’s accusers.
“Because the facts are — look, she — I’m not suggesting she had no right to come forward. And I never — and I’m not saying — any woman, they should come forward. They should be heard. And then, it should be investigated,” he said.
The Trump campaign’s attack also alluded to a collection of documents from Biden’s Senate years gifted to the University of Delaware in 2011.
Reade says evidence of an official complaint she lodged against Biden could be stored at the university, a possibility he has downplayed. The likely Democratic standard-bearer, however, is coming under increasing pressure to make the papers public, which he fears may be weaponized against him in the coming general election fight while Trump, for example, refuses to disclose his tax returns.
“While he called for the complete release of Mike Bloomberg’s documents related to complaints against him, Biden made clear he does not want his University of Delaware records released because they could be used against him in the campaign,” the Trump team wrote.
