House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lashed out at a reporter who asked about the disparate treatment of sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and former Vice President Joe Biden.
“I respect your question, and I don’t need a lecture or a speech,” Pelosi told a Washington Examiner reporter who asked the California Democrat about Democrats supporting Biden following a sexual assault allegation by a former Senate aide.
“I have a complete respect for the whole #MeToo movement,” Pelosi said. “I have four daughters and one son. And there’s a lot of excitement around the idea that women will be heard and be able to be listened to.”
Pelosi was asked about criticism that Democrats are using “a different standard” for Biden.
Democrats called for investigations into the allegations by Christine Blasey Ford that Kavanaugh assaulted her at a party when the two were teenagers in the 1980s. The inquiry included hearings and an FBI review of the claim, delaying and nearly derailing Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the high court.
So far, no prominent Democrat has called for similar scrutiny over an allegation by Tara Reade that Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, sexually assaulted her decades ago when she worked for him in the U.S. Senate.
“There is also due process, and the fact that Joe Biden is Joe Biden,” Pelosi said Thursday during her weekly news conference. “There’s been statements from his campaign, not his campaign but his former employees who ran his offices and the rest, that there was never any record of this, there was never any record, and that nobody ever came forward or nobody came forward to say something about it apart from the principle involved.”
Pelosi told reporters she remains a full supporter of Biden’s candidacy. She said Biden has long been an advocate for women, dating back to his time as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s and as an author of the Violence Against Women Act.
“I am so proud, that happiest day for me this week was to support Joe Biden for president of the United States,” Pelosi said, adding, “I believe that he will be a great president of the United States. He is the personification of hope and optimism and authenticity, for our country, a person of great values. So I’m going to remove all doubt in anyone’s mind. I have great comfort level with the situation as I see it, with all the respect in the world for any woman who comes forward, with all the highest regard for Joe Biden, and that’s what I have to say about that. Thank you.”
