OK then. Biden 2020.
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hanimmal
Well-Known Member
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/25/virtual-press-conferences-can-bring-biden-into-your-home/
Former vice president Joe Biden is trying to elevate his presence in the worst domestic crisis of our lifetimes. In the 24/7 coronavirus news cycle, with the president trying to monopolize airtime, it is no easy task. What’s more, Biden is a famously hands-on, hug-ready politician; he now has to create virtual intimacy with voters. He’s doing more TV interviews, roundtables and news conferences, including one conference on Wednesday.
The vast majority of voters never meet presidential candidates, deriving their impression of them through traditional and social media. But the impression they are now getting of Biden is different from what they usually see on-air when outlets cover big speeches and rallies. Talking in a quiet voice directly to the camera gives Biden a chance to create fireside chats for the 21st century. Given how homebound most voters are, he may have a chance to reach a significant number of viewers in a very personal way.
More coverage of the coronavirus pandemic
Both in opening remarks and in answering questions, Biden strove to present himself as the figure already capable of uniting the country. From the start of the conference, he emphasized that we are all in this together, a unity theme that has been part of his message throughout his campaign. He began, “None of us want to be cooped up in our homes just as the weather is turning nice … just as the campaign for the presidency is kicking into high gear. But it’s necessary. … We have to stay home.” In contrast to President Trump, who attacks whatever convenient target will enrage his base (e.g., Democratic governors, the media), Biden continually praises people — Congress for getting out the bill, governors for struggling through, Americans for helping out.
New to his messaging, Biden also made a clear push to reach younger voters. He said in his opening remarks: “Millennials have grown up navigating enormous disruption and changes in our society, and still they stepped up all across to serve.” He answered a question from an 18-year-old press participant at length, covering everything from his pitch to pursue student debt forgiveness to paying for community colleges to unemployment benefits in the current bill for (mostly young) gig workers. His deliberate pitch that millennials are falling behind their parents and now face even more hurdles due to the virus and recession was a noteworthy shift in his messaging.
Biden also continued his focused, consistent attacks on Trump: Trump started addressing the crisis too late. He’s failed to use the Defense Production Act. He put out a phony deadline for opening the economy. The underlying message here is that Trump not only failed but is failing now to help the states. Biden also stressed the complexity and needed oversight to make sure stimulus funds are being spent correctly, something he directly handled in the Obama administration for the stimulus bill. Biden effectively paints a picture of a hands-on manager who knows politicians and other key figures, cajoles people to move swiftly and makes sure no one is getting away with pocketing the taxpayers’ money. One could not help but realize Trump likely has no idea exactly what is in the stimulus bill let alone the effort it will take to administer it.
And finally, in the nicest way possible, Biden all but told Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to scram. Asked about whether he would debate Sanders (don’t laugh, Sanders suggested on Tuesdaythere could be an April debate), he said matter-of-factly, “I haven’t thought about any more debates — I think we’ve had enough debates, so I think we should get on with this.” In short, why would the presumptive nominee debate someone who loses almost every state?
Biden says he’s learning how to use new technology. (He noted that one of his video events got more than 3 million views.) He’s an unlikely figure to revolutionize presidential campaigning, but in the coronavirus era, everyone has to improvise. Perhaps the quiet setting in his own home, the lack of a crowd and the conversational tone he can deploy will allow him to speak to us, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt did, virtually one-on-one. For a candidate who thrives on a personal bond with voters, this is an extraordinary challenge but also an opportunity.
Former vice president Joe Biden is trying to elevate his presence in the worst domestic crisis of our lifetimes. In the 24/7 coronavirus news cycle, with the president trying to monopolize airtime, it is no easy task. What’s more, Biden is a famously hands-on, hug-ready politician; he now has to create virtual intimacy with voters. He’s doing more TV interviews, roundtables and news conferences, including one conference on Wednesday.
The vast majority of voters never meet presidential candidates, deriving their impression of them through traditional and social media. But the impression they are now getting of Biden is different from what they usually see on-air when outlets cover big speeches and rallies. Talking in a quiet voice directly to the camera gives Biden a chance to create fireside chats for the 21st century. Given how homebound most voters are, he may have a chance to reach a significant number of viewers in a very personal way.
More coverage of the coronavirus pandemic
Both in opening remarks and in answering questions, Biden strove to present himself as the figure already capable of uniting the country. From the start of the conference, he emphasized that we are all in this together, a unity theme that has been part of his message throughout his campaign. He began, “None of us want to be cooped up in our homes just as the weather is turning nice … just as the campaign for the presidency is kicking into high gear. But it’s necessary. … We have to stay home.” In contrast to President Trump, who attacks whatever convenient target will enrage his base (e.g., Democratic governors, the media), Biden continually praises people — Congress for getting out the bill, governors for struggling through, Americans for helping out.
New to his messaging, Biden also made a clear push to reach younger voters. He said in his opening remarks: “Millennials have grown up navigating enormous disruption and changes in our society, and still they stepped up all across to serve.” He answered a question from an 18-year-old press participant at length, covering everything from his pitch to pursue student debt forgiveness to paying for community colleges to unemployment benefits in the current bill for (mostly young) gig workers. His deliberate pitch that millennials are falling behind their parents and now face even more hurdles due to the virus and recession was a noteworthy shift in his messaging.
Biden also continued his focused, consistent attacks on Trump: Trump started addressing the crisis too late. He’s failed to use the Defense Production Act. He put out a phony deadline for opening the economy. The underlying message here is that Trump not only failed but is failing now to help the states. Biden also stressed the complexity and needed oversight to make sure stimulus funds are being spent correctly, something he directly handled in the Obama administration for the stimulus bill. Biden effectively paints a picture of a hands-on manager who knows politicians and other key figures, cajoles people to move swiftly and makes sure no one is getting away with pocketing the taxpayers’ money. One could not help but realize Trump likely has no idea exactly what is in the stimulus bill let alone the effort it will take to administer it.
And finally, in the nicest way possible, Biden all but told Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to scram. Asked about whether he would debate Sanders (don’t laugh, Sanders suggested on Tuesdaythere could be an April debate), he said matter-of-factly, “I haven’t thought about any more debates — I think we’ve had enough debates, so I think we should get on with this.” In short, why would the presumptive nominee debate someone who loses almost every state?
Biden says he’s learning how to use new technology. (He noted that one of his video events got more than 3 million views.) He’s an unlikely figure to revolutionize presidential campaigning, but in the coronavirus era, everyone has to improvise. Perhaps the quiet setting in his own home, the lack of a crowd and the conversational tone he can deploy will allow him to speak to us, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt did, virtually one-on-one. For a candidate who thrives on a personal bond with voters, this is an extraordinary challenge but also an opportunity.
captainmorgan
Well-Known Member
I like the optimism but everyone knows tRUmp is a literal moron and as such could never plan and coordinate what he has done to our government, but he does have the mental makeup to carry out such a plan. He's had a lot of help and people can argue about who but that doesn't change the the fact that even if he's removed, will his puppet masters still be there? The term useful idiot comes to mind.
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DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Only Putin pulls Donald's strings, he owns him several different ways and so has many potential strings, not so much anymore though. I'll bet even Vlad was surprised at how fucking stupid Trump supporters turned out to be in reality. What could Vlad have on Donald that's worse than what we've already seen? Do they have him in a child porn video or a snuff film, or something even more nefarious?
Donald is an impulse driven know nothing moron who has bullshitted his way through life, faking accomplishments, knowledge and intelligence, a con is not something he merely does, it's who he is. You can sit at a table in a bar with a man for years just talking, but you'll know him a lot better, if you just spend a single day with him trying to get something important done.
Donald has experience and an instinctive talent for survival, a low cunning, but it's also a habitual reaction. He can't learn or adapt, reacts and does not respond, lives for the moment and not in it, getting through the "now" and "winning", is all that counts in social encounters, which is why they are one sided affairs.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
This is gonna get a Helluva lot worse than it is now, both in humanitarian and in economic terms, Trump and the republicans are fucked, they've lead the country to the brink of disaster before and this time, they and Donald, have led the entire country over the cliff and into the abyss, the American people are screaming all the way down. Impact with the bottom is scheduled for about 2 tweeks, the laws of epidemiology are like those of gravity, mathematical and factual, the hard fact of impact with the ground.
Good God, imagine when all this is covered by congressional oversight and Donald tries to play the usual games, the congressional republicans know what's coming and must be shitting their pants over this fiasco. HTF are they gonna cary Donald's water over this shit? How come nobody was thrown under the bus over the testing fiasco? Those oversight hearings will be Nancy's call, but they are coming and the public want answers, so does the senate, their own asses are on the line here. This will not be like the Ukrainian affair and impeachment, I'm not sure if Donald realises that, this is far different and every American is being negatively affected. No fun and games will be tolerated with witnesses and documents this time.
I hope I live long enough to see it, which is not a question I used to entertain much... It will be a blow out for the GOP on november, if not America is too stupid to survive and you'll win a Darwin award for the entire nation, you'll get the biggest unit citation a group of morons ever received and it would be well deserved too. Electing Donald would be endorsing national suicide, a recipe for self destruction, death by Donald. He needs to change his slogan and hats to: MAD- MAKE AMERICA DEAD
Good God, imagine when all this is covered by congressional oversight and Donald tries to play the usual games, the congressional republicans know what's coming and must be shitting their pants over this fiasco. HTF are they gonna cary Donald's water over this shit? How come nobody was thrown under the bus over the testing fiasco? Those oversight hearings will be Nancy's call, but they are coming and the public want answers, so does the senate, their own asses are on the line here. This will not be like the Ukrainian affair and impeachment, I'm not sure if Donald realises that, this is far different and every American is being negatively affected. No fun and games will be tolerated with witnesses and documents this time.
I hope I live long enough to see it, which is not a question I used to entertain much... It will be a blow out for the GOP on november, if not America is too stupid to survive and you'll win a Darwin award for the entire nation, you'll get the biggest unit citation a group of morons ever received and it would be well deserved too. Electing Donald would be endorsing national suicide, a recipe for self destruction, death by Donald. He needs to change his slogan and hats to: MAD- MAKE AMERICA DEAD
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
Well thank you for this, led me to watch a bunch of epic failing prank videos to use as a post here:
As much as it sucks for us, eventually Putin/everyone else will have to pay for fucking with our, and every other countries democracies.
Fogdog
Well-Known Member
Who will win in November is a matter of opinion and plenty will happen between now and when the election is held if it's held. If you want to believe Trump will win, or if you are already convinced that he'll win regardless of what you want, I can't say you are wrong with certainty.
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
I read through a really nice in depth questioning that the New York Times did on Biden. It is worth reading through (especially the foreign relations questions) to get a solid idea of what he will bring to the table as the President. But one thing that really was important to me that was asked was about his views towards disinformation on Facebook and how it is being used to attack our (and every other democracies) citizens while being exempt from being sued (much like gun manufacturers).
The Bold/Underline portion is the Journalist and their question, Biden's response is normal, and the edited in explanations by the Times is in Blue.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/17/opinion/joe-biden-nytimes-interview.html
Charlie Warzel: Sure. Mr. Vice President, in October, your campaign sent a letter to Facebook regarding an ad that falsely claimed that you blackmailed Ukrainian officials to not investigate your son. I’m curious, did that experience, dealing with Facebook and their power, did that change the way that you see the power of tech platforms right now?
Biden: No, I’ve never been a fan of Facebook, as you probably know. I’ve never been a big Zuckerberg fan. I think he’s a real problem. I think ——
CW: Can you elaborate?
Biden: No, I can. He knows better. And you know, from my perspective, I’ve been in the view that not only should we be worrying about the concentration of power, we should be worried about the lack of privacy and them being exempt, which you’re not exempt. [The Times] can’t write something you know to be false and be exempt from being sued. But he can.
The idea that it’s a tech company is that Section 230 should be revoked, immediately should be revoked, number one. For Zuckerberg and other platforms.
CW: That’s a pretty foundational laws of the modern internet.
Biden: That’s right. Exactly right. And it should be revoked. It should be revoked because it is not merely an internet company. It is propagating falsehoods they know to be false, and we should be setting standards not unlike the Europeans are doing relative to privacy. You guys still have editors. I’m sitting with them. Not a joke. There is no editorial impact at all on Facebook. None. None whatsoever. It’s irresponsible. It’s totally irresponsible.
CW: If there’s proven harm that Facebook has done, should someone like Mark Zuckerberg be submitted to criminal penalties, perhaps?
Biden: He should be submitted to civil liability and his company to civil liability, just like you would be here at The New York Times. Whether he engaged in something and amounted to collusion that in fact caused harm that would in fact be equal to a criminal offense, that’s a different issue. That’s possible. That’s possible it could happen. Zuckerberg finally took down those ads that Russia was running. All those bots about me. They’re no longer being run.
KK: Under the Obama administration, Silicon Valley’s power actually expanded greatly. There are very few mergers blocked. Do you have any regrets about that?
Biden: The reason why I was given presidential power when I was given an assignment is because I kept the disagreements I had with the president just that, as I said at the outset, with the president. One of the reasons he said he picked me was I’d never walked in the Oval Office and be intimidated by being in the Oval Office. I’d always tell him what I thought, but at the end of the day, he gets to make the decision.
There are places where he and I have disagreed. About 30 percent of the time, I was able to convince him to my side of the equation. Seventy percent of the time I wasn’t when we disagreed, when he laid something out. And you may recall, the criticism I got for meeting with the leaders in Silicon Valley, when I was trying to work out an agreement dealing with them protecting intellectual property for artists in the United States of America. And at one point, one of the little creeps sitting around that table, who was a multi- — close to a billionaire — who told me he was an artist because he was able to come up with games to teach you how to kill people, you know the ——
CW: Like video games.
Biden: Yeah, video games. And I was lectured by one of the senior leaders there that by saying if I insisted on what Leahy’d put together and we were, I thought we were going to fully support, that they would blow up the network, figuratively speaking. Have everybody contact. They get out and go out and contact the switchboard, just blow it up.
And then one of these righteous people said to me that, you know, “We are the economic engine of America. We are the ones.” And fortunately I had done a little homework before I went and I said, you know, I find it fascinating. As I added up the seven outfits, everyone’s there but Microsoft. I said, you have fewer people on your payroll than all the losses that General Motors just faced in the last quarter, of employees. So don’t lecture me about how you’ve created all this employment.
The point is, there’s an arrogance about it, an overwhelming arrogance that we are, we are the ones. We can do what we want to do. I disagree. Every industrial revolution, every major technological breakthrough, every single one. We’re in the fourth one. The hardest speech I’ve ever had to make in my life, I was asked to speak at the World Economic Forum, to give an answer on, to speak to the fourth industrial revolution. Will there be a middle class? It’s not so clear there will be, and I’ve worked on it harder than any speech I’ve ever worked on.
The fact is, in every other revolution that we’ve had technologically, it’s taken somewhere between six years and a generation for a government to come in and level the playing field again. All of a sudden, remember the Luddites smashing the machinery in the Midlands? That was their answer when the culture was changing. Same thing with television. Same thing before that with radio. Same thing, but this is gigantic. And it’s a responsibility of government to make sure it is not abused. Not abused. And so this is one of those areas where I think it’s being abused. For example, the idea that he cooperates with knowing that Russia was engaged in dealing with using the internet, I mean using their platform, to try to undermine American elections. That’s close to criminal.
CW: I think he would argue that he didn’t know about that at the time and ——
Biden: He’d argue it and I don’t believe him for a second.
CW: You don’t believe that?
Biden: No, I don’t. Nor do you, in your heart. [LAUGHS]
CW: Some of your opponents right now are in Silicon Valley raising money from these people. Has your campaign steered away from money from Silicon Valley?
Biden: I haven’t gone to — there are people in Silicon Valley who are decent people. I’m sure there’s people from Silicon Valley have in fact ——
CW: I am using that as a stand-in for the tech industry, mostly though.
Biden: Well the tech industry, look, not everyone in the tech industry is a bad guy, and I’m not suggesting that. What I’m suggesting is that some of the things that are going on are simply wrong and require government regulation. And it’s happened every single time there’s been a major technological breakthrough in humanities since the 1800s, and this requires it. For example, you have children?
CW: No.
Biden: Well, when you do and you’ll watch them on the internet, it gets a little concerning. What in fact they can see and not see, and whether or not what they’re seeing is true or not true. It matters. It matters. It’s like — well, anyway.
The Bold/Underline portion is the Journalist and their question, Biden's response is normal, and the edited in explanations by the Times is in Blue.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/17/opinion/joe-biden-nytimes-interview.html
Charlie Warzel: Sure. Mr. Vice President, in October, your campaign sent a letter to Facebook regarding an ad that falsely claimed that you blackmailed Ukrainian officials to not investigate your son. I’m curious, did that experience, dealing with Facebook and their power, did that change the way that you see the power of tech platforms right now?
Biden: No, I’ve never been a fan of Facebook, as you probably know. I’ve never been a big Zuckerberg fan. I think he’s a real problem. I think ——
CW: Can you elaborate?
Biden: No, I can. He knows better. And you know, from my perspective, I’ve been in the view that not only should we be worrying about the concentration of power, we should be worried about the lack of privacy and them being exempt, which you’re not exempt. [The Times] can’t write something you know to be false and be exempt from being sued. But he can.
The idea that it’s a tech company is that Section 230 should be revoked, immediately should be revoked, number one. For Zuckerberg and other platforms.
CW: That’s a pretty foundational laws of the modern internet.
Biden: That’s right. Exactly right. And it should be revoked. It should be revoked because it is not merely an internet company. It is propagating falsehoods they know to be false, and we should be setting standards not unlike the Europeans are doing relative to privacy. You guys still have editors. I’m sitting with them. Not a joke. There is no editorial impact at all on Facebook. None. None whatsoever. It’s irresponsible. It’s totally irresponsible.
CW: If there’s proven harm that Facebook has done, should someone like Mark Zuckerberg be submitted to criminal penalties, perhaps?
Biden: He should be submitted to civil liability and his company to civil liability, just like you would be here at The New York Times. Whether he engaged in something and amounted to collusion that in fact caused harm that would in fact be equal to a criminal offense, that’s a different issue. That’s possible. That’s possible it could happen. Zuckerberg finally took down those ads that Russia was running. All those bots about me. They’re no longer being run.
He was getting paid a lot of money to put them up. I learned three things. Number one, Putin doesn’t want me to be president. Number two, Kim Jong-un thinks I should be beaten to death like a rabid dog and three, this president of the United States is spending millions of dollars to try to keep me from being the nominee. I wonder why.
KK: Under the Obama administration, Silicon Valley’s power actually expanded greatly. There are very few mergers blocked. Do you have any regrets about that?
Biden: The reason why I was given presidential power when I was given an assignment is because I kept the disagreements I had with the president just that, as I said at the outset, with the president. One of the reasons he said he picked me was I’d never walked in the Oval Office and be intimidated by being in the Oval Office. I’d always tell him what I thought, but at the end of the day, he gets to make the decision.
There are places where he and I have disagreed. About 30 percent of the time, I was able to convince him to my side of the equation. Seventy percent of the time I wasn’t when we disagreed, when he laid something out. And you may recall, the criticism I got for meeting with the leaders in Silicon Valley, when I was trying to work out an agreement dealing with them protecting intellectual property for artists in the United States of America. And at one point, one of the little creeps sitting around that table, who was a multi- — close to a billionaire — who told me he was an artist because he was able to come up with games to teach you how to kill people, you know the ——
CW: Like video games.
Biden: Yeah, video games. And I was lectured by one of the senior leaders there that by saying if I insisted on what Leahy’d put together and we were, I thought we were going to fully support, that they would blow up the network, figuratively speaking. Have everybody contact. They get out and go out and contact the switchboard, just blow it up.
And then one of these righteous people said to me that, you know, “We are the economic engine of America. We are the ones.” And fortunately I had done a little homework before I went and I said, you know, I find it fascinating. As I added up the seven outfits, everyone’s there but Microsoft. I said, you have fewer people on your payroll than all the losses that General Motors just faced in the last quarter, of employees. So don’t lecture me about how you’ve created all this employment.
The point is, there’s an arrogance about it, an overwhelming arrogance that we are, we are the ones. We can do what we want to do. I disagree. Every industrial revolution, every major technological breakthrough, every single one. We’re in the fourth one. The hardest speech I’ve ever had to make in my life, I was asked to speak at the World Economic Forum, to give an answer on, to speak to the fourth industrial revolution. Will there be a middle class? It’s not so clear there will be, and I’ve worked on it harder than any speech I’ve ever worked on.
The fact is, in every other revolution that we’ve had technologically, it’s taken somewhere between six years and a generation for a government to come in and level the playing field again. All of a sudden, remember the Luddites smashing the machinery in the Midlands? That was their answer when the culture was changing. Same thing with television. Same thing before that with radio. Same thing, but this is gigantic. And it’s a responsibility of government to make sure it is not abused. Not abused. And so this is one of those areas where I think it’s being abused. For example, the idea that he cooperates with knowing that Russia was engaged in dealing with using the internet, I mean using their platform, to try to undermine American elections. That’s close to criminal.
CW: I think he would argue that he didn’t know about that at the time and ——
Biden: He’d argue it and I don’t believe him for a second.
CW: You don’t believe that?
Biden: No, I don’t. Nor do you, in your heart. [LAUGHS]
CW: Some of your opponents right now are in Silicon Valley raising money from these people. Has your campaign steered away from money from Silicon Valley?
Biden: I haven’t gone to — there are people in Silicon Valley who are decent people. I’m sure there’s people from Silicon Valley have in fact ——
CW: I am using that as a stand-in for the tech industry, mostly though.
Biden: Well the tech industry, look, not everyone in the tech industry is a bad guy, and I’m not suggesting that. What I’m suggesting is that some of the things that are going on are simply wrong and require government regulation. And it’s happened every single time there’s been a major technological breakthrough in humanities since the 1800s, and this requires it. For example, you have children?
CW: No.
Biden: Well, when you do and you’ll watch them on the internet, it gets a little concerning. What in fact they can see and not see, and whether or not what they’re seeing is true or not true. It matters. It matters. It’s like — well, anyway.
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
Im glad Biden is hitting Trump with his horrifying shitty statements suggesting that medical professionals are stealing equipment. It just shows the type of person he is since everything is a projection of what he would do.
And he followed up with great message to America. We will get through this because we have amazing people all across our country (and the world). Keep well everyone.
And he followed up with great message to America. We will get through this because we have amazing people all across our country (and the world). Keep well everyone.
Dr.Amber Trichome
Well-Known Member
I hope Joe starts wearing a full body astronaut like jump suit with oxygen tank and some sort of dictaphone like device once he emerges from his bunker when he goes out in public shaking hands and doing rally’s . It’s just too dangerous otherwise. I have absolutely no problem with him presenting himself that way. If he gets the virus he has a good chance of dying. What would happen then? Bernie would win but then if Bernie gets the Virus and doesn’t wear the full protection he might die from the virus . Then what would happen?
If Joe does wear the full body hazmat suit he would still be able to shake hands and give hugs and that would be awesome! Someone could design him a really slick patriotic suit. On his days off he could even fill it with laughing gas for some chill time.
If Joe does wear the full body hazmat suit he would still be able to shake hands and give hugs and that would be awesome! Someone could design him a really slick patriotic suit. On his days off he could even fill it with laughing gas for some chill time.
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hanimmal
Well-Known Member
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sexual-assault-allegation-by-former-biden-senate-aide-emerges-in-campaign-draws-denial/2020/04/12/bc070d66-7067-11ea-b148-e4ce3fbd85b5_story.html
A California woman who last year said Joe Biden touched her neck and shoulders when she worked in his Senate office in 1993 is now accusing him of sexually assaulting her that year in a semiprivate area of the Capitol complex, an allegation the Biden campaign strongly denies.
The Washington Post has been examining Tara Reade’s allegation over the past three weeks, since she said on a podcast that Biden had pinned her against a wall, reached under her skirt and pushed his fingers inside her. At the time, she was a 29-year-old staff assistant.
The Post has interviewed Reade on multiple occasions — both this year and last — as well as people she says she told of the assault claim and more than a half-dozen former staffers of Biden’s Senate office.
In interviews with The Post last year, Reade said that Biden had touched her neck and shoulders but did not mention the alleged assault or suggest there was more to the story. She faulted his staff, calling Biden “a male of his time, a very powerful senator, and he had people around saying it was okay.”
She acknowledged in more recent interviews that she twice voted for the Obama-Biden ticket, saying she strongly supported their political positions. Since January, Reade has been a vocal supporter of Biden’s former rival Bernie Sanders. She said political considerations played no role in her decision to raise the sexual assault allegation.
President Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. and his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, sought to inject Reade’s allegation into the presidential campaign on Saturday by accusing the media on Twitter of not covering it. After the New York Times published a story about Reade’s account Sunday morning, social media lit up as partisans either rushed to equate it to widely publicized claims against other powerful men or to point out ways in which hers is different.
The former vice president has been accused of unwanted hugging and other physical contact, but The Post found no other allegations against him as serious as Reade’s. More than a dozen women, by contrast, have accused Trump of forced kissing, groping or sexual assault, and he has been recorded on audio boasting about grabbing women between their legs.
On Thursday, Reade filed a complaint with D.C. police. She told The Post she did so because she is being harassed online and wanted law enforcement to be aware of her claim. A public record of the complaint does not name Biden but says Reade “disclosed that she believes she was the victim of a sexual assault” in 1993.
Reade told The Post she gave police a long interview describing the alleged assault by Biden. The portion of the police report detailing her allegation is not public. Filing a false report is a crime punishable by up to 30 days in jail.
Reade, now 56, said in recent interviews that she was afraid to report the assault or talk about it publicly last year, when she accused Biden of unwanted touching in online posts and media interviews. In those accounts, she said she complained to supervisors about the alleged neck and shoulder contact and a request from a supervisor that she serve drinks at a reception. She said the supervisors later ostracized her and told her to look for another job.
“I didn’t have the courage to come forward” about the assault, Reade said. “I couldn’t get the words out. . . . As time has progressed, I felt stronger about speaking my truth. I realized I had to do this.”
Reade said she described the alleged assault soon after it happened to her mother, who died in 2016, and to a friend, a former intern for another lawmaker. In an interview, the friend corroborated Reade’s account of their conversation but declined to be named in this report.
In another recent interview, Reade’s brother, Collin Moulton, said she told him in 1993 that Biden had behaved inappropriately by touching her neck and shoulders. Their mother urged Reade to contact the police, Moulton said, adding that he felt “ashamed now for not being a better advocate” for his sister. Several days after that interview, he said in a text message that he recalled her telling him that Biden had put his hand “under her clothes.”
Reade said she told a therapist earlier this year about the alleged assault. The Post asked Reade for the therapist’s notes of that conversation, but she has not produced them.
Biden’s presidential campaign called Reade’s accusations false. “Vice President Biden has dedicated his public life to changing the culture and the laws around violence against women,” said Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager and communications director. “He authored and fought for the passage and reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against Women Act. He firmly believes that women have a right to be heard — and heard respectfully. Such claims should also be diligently reviewed by an independent press. What is clear about this claim: It is untrue. This absolutely did not happen.”
The campaign also released a statement attributed to Marianne Baker, who was an executive assistant in the office and one of the supervisors to whom Reade says she made a harassment complaint.
“In all my years working for Sen. Biden, I never once witnessed, or heard of, or received, any reports of inappropriate conduct, period — not from Ms. Reade, not from anyone,” Baker said. “I have absolutely no knowledge or memory of Ms. Reade’s accounting of events, which would have left a searing impression on me as a woman professional, and as a manager. These clearly false allegations are in complete contradiction to both the inner workings of our Senate office and to the man I know and worked so closely with for almost two decades.”
Baker did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Reade worked for Biden’s office from December 1992 to early August 1993, according to Senate records. She said that in addition to Baker, she complained about feeling uncomfortable — but not the alleged assault — to two other supervisors in the Senate office: Dennis Toner, deputy chief of staff; and Ted Kaufman, chief of staff. Toner and Kaufman said in interviews that they had no specific recollection of Reade and no memory of such a complaint.
“I would remember something like this if it ever came up,” said Toner, a Delaware-based consultant. “I think it’s an outrageous accusation that’s totally untrue.”
Kaufman said: “It never came up. And I sure would have remembered if it did.” Kaufman has no formal role on the campaign but remains a close confidant.
Reade initially oversaw a group of interns. Two recalled that Reade abruptly stopped overseeing them in April — just a few weeks after the interns arrived — but neither was aware of the circumstances that led to her departure. Reade stopped working in the office several months later.
The 2020 presidential campaign will be the first since the #MeToo movement in late 2017 began inspiring women to share stories of abuse by powerful men.
Near the end of the 2016 campaign, The Post uncovered a 2005 videotape in which Trump bragged that because of his fame he could grab women between the legs, comments he dismissed later as “locker-room banter.” In the days after that audio was published, about a dozen women accused him of sexual misconduct going back decades. Their stories ranged from Trump groping their breasts and buttocks to him kissing them without consent on the lips. Trump called the women liars. More recently, he has denied a New York writer’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her in a department store dressing room more than two decades ago.
Last spring, as Biden was preparing to formally enter the presidential race, about a half dozen women came forward with stories of unwanted touching or displays of affection. None alleged sexual assault.
Among them was Lucy Flores, who said that in 2014 the then-vice president touched and kissed the back of her head during her campaign for Nevada’s lieutenant governor.
..Cont..
A California woman who last year said Joe Biden touched her neck and shoulders when she worked in his Senate office in 1993 is now accusing him of sexually assaulting her that year in a semiprivate area of the Capitol complex, an allegation the Biden campaign strongly denies.
The Washington Post has been examining Tara Reade’s allegation over the past three weeks, since she said on a podcast that Biden had pinned her against a wall, reached under her skirt and pushed his fingers inside her. At the time, she was a 29-year-old staff assistant.
The Post has interviewed Reade on multiple occasions — both this year and last — as well as people she says she told of the assault claim and more than a half-dozen former staffers of Biden’s Senate office.
In interviews with The Post last year, Reade said that Biden had touched her neck and shoulders but did not mention the alleged assault or suggest there was more to the story. She faulted his staff, calling Biden “a male of his time, a very powerful senator, and he had people around saying it was okay.”
She acknowledged in more recent interviews that she twice voted for the Obama-Biden ticket, saying she strongly supported their political positions. Since January, Reade has been a vocal supporter of Biden’s former rival Bernie Sanders. She said political considerations played no role in her decision to raise the sexual assault allegation.
President Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. and his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, sought to inject Reade’s allegation into the presidential campaign on Saturday by accusing the media on Twitter of not covering it. After the New York Times published a story about Reade’s account Sunday morning, social media lit up as partisans either rushed to equate it to widely publicized claims against other powerful men or to point out ways in which hers is different.
The former vice president has been accused of unwanted hugging and other physical contact, but The Post found no other allegations against him as serious as Reade’s. More than a dozen women, by contrast, have accused Trump of forced kissing, groping or sexual assault, and he has been recorded on audio boasting about grabbing women between their legs.
On Thursday, Reade filed a complaint with D.C. police. She told The Post she did so because she is being harassed online and wanted law enforcement to be aware of her claim. A public record of the complaint does not name Biden but says Reade “disclosed that she believes she was the victim of a sexual assault” in 1993.
Reade told The Post she gave police a long interview describing the alleged assault by Biden. The portion of the police report detailing her allegation is not public. Filing a false report is a crime punishable by up to 30 days in jail.
Reade, now 56, said in recent interviews that she was afraid to report the assault or talk about it publicly last year, when she accused Biden of unwanted touching in online posts and media interviews. In those accounts, she said she complained to supervisors about the alleged neck and shoulder contact and a request from a supervisor that she serve drinks at a reception. She said the supervisors later ostracized her and told her to look for another job.
“I didn’t have the courage to come forward” about the assault, Reade said. “I couldn’t get the words out. . . . As time has progressed, I felt stronger about speaking my truth. I realized I had to do this.”
Reade said she described the alleged assault soon after it happened to her mother, who died in 2016, and to a friend, a former intern for another lawmaker. In an interview, the friend corroborated Reade’s account of their conversation but declined to be named in this report.
In another recent interview, Reade’s brother, Collin Moulton, said she told him in 1993 that Biden had behaved inappropriately by touching her neck and shoulders. Their mother urged Reade to contact the police, Moulton said, adding that he felt “ashamed now for not being a better advocate” for his sister. Several days after that interview, he said in a text message that he recalled her telling him that Biden had put his hand “under her clothes.”
Reade said she told a therapist earlier this year about the alleged assault. The Post asked Reade for the therapist’s notes of that conversation, but she has not produced them.
Biden’s presidential campaign called Reade’s accusations false. “Vice President Biden has dedicated his public life to changing the culture and the laws around violence against women,” said Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager and communications director. “He authored and fought for the passage and reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against Women Act. He firmly believes that women have a right to be heard — and heard respectfully. Such claims should also be diligently reviewed by an independent press. What is clear about this claim: It is untrue. This absolutely did not happen.”
The campaign also released a statement attributed to Marianne Baker, who was an executive assistant in the office and one of the supervisors to whom Reade says she made a harassment complaint.
“In all my years working for Sen. Biden, I never once witnessed, or heard of, or received, any reports of inappropriate conduct, period — not from Ms. Reade, not from anyone,” Baker said. “I have absolutely no knowledge or memory of Ms. Reade’s accounting of events, which would have left a searing impression on me as a woman professional, and as a manager. These clearly false allegations are in complete contradiction to both the inner workings of our Senate office and to the man I know and worked so closely with for almost two decades.”
Baker did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Reade worked for Biden’s office from December 1992 to early August 1993, according to Senate records. She said that in addition to Baker, she complained about feeling uncomfortable — but not the alleged assault — to two other supervisors in the Senate office: Dennis Toner, deputy chief of staff; and Ted Kaufman, chief of staff. Toner and Kaufman said in interviews that they had no specific recollection of Reade and no memory of such a complaint.
“I would remember something like this if it ever came up,” said Toner, a Delaware-based consultant. “I think it’s an outrageous accusation that’s totally untrue.”
Kaufman said: “It never came up. And I sure would have remembered if it did.” Kaufman has no formal role on the campaign but remains a close confidant.
Reade initially oversaw a group of interns. Two recalled that Reade abruptly stopped overseeing them in April — just a few weeks after the interns arrived — but neither was aware of the circumstances that led to her departure. Reade stopped working in the office several months later.
The 2020 presidential campaign will be the first since the #MeToo movement in late 2017 began inspiring women to share stories of abuse by powerful men.
Near the end of the 2016 campaign, The Post uncovered a 2005 videotape in which Trump bragged that because of his fame he could grab women between the legs, comments he dismissed later as “locker-room banter.” In the days after that audio was published, about a dozen women accused him of sexual misconduct going back decades. Their stories ranged from Trump groping their breasts and buttocks to him kissing them without consent on the lips. Trump called the women liars. More recently, he has denied a New York writer’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her in a department store dressing room more than two decades ago.
Last spring, as Biden was preparing to formally enter the presidential race, about a half dozen women came forward with stories of unwanted touching or displays of affection. None alleged sexual assault.
Among them was Lucy Flores, who said that in 2014 the then-vice president touched and kissed the back of her head during her campaign for Nevada’s lieutenant governor.
..Cont..
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
Biden pledged to be “more respectful of people’s personal space.” But he joked about the criticism two days later, and he has remained physically affectionate during campaign events, where some supporters ask for hugs.
Flores’s story inspired Reade to offer her own account to her local newspaper, the Union, in Nevada County, Calif, Reade said. The details in that article matched the narrative Reade gave The Post the next day in a telephone interview.
...
She said in that interview, on April 4, 2019, that on at least three occasions Biden put his hands on her shoulders and the base of her neck. She also said she walked in on an argument between two staffers, in which one suggested that Reade was being asked to serve drinks at a reception because Biden thought she was pretty and liked her legs.
She said the supervisors she later complained to dismissed her concerns, told her to wear less provocative clothing and took away responsibilities before finally asking her to resign.
In The Post interview last year, she laid more blame with Biden's staff for “bullying” her than with Biden.
“This is what I want to emphasize: It’s not him. It’s the people around him who keep covering for him,” Reade said, adding later, “For instance, he should have known what was happening to me. . . . Looking back now, that’s my criticism. Maybe he could have been a little more in touch with his own staff.”
The Post last year published other accusations of unwanted touching by Biden but not Reade’s. A friend that she said she had told of the harassment did not respond last year to requests for comment. That friend — the same one who in recent days confirmed that Reade told her of the alleged assault — said she had no memory of receiving calls from The Post.
After Reade went public with her account of harassment, she faced a backlash on social media. Her effusive praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin — she described him in a Medium post in December 2018 as a “compassionate, caring, visionary leader” — led to attacks that she was seeking to advance Russian interests.
Reade told The Post she had gained admiration for Putin while doing research on Russia for a novel. She said she took down the Putin-related posts because of the attacks.
Throughout the rest of 2019, she tweeted dozens of times at several Democratic contenders and at least once at Trump, saying that Biden sexually harassed her when she worked in his Senate office years earlier.
“I don’t have an agenda other than I just wanted my story told,” said Reade, who has a law degree and was working part time assisting families with special-needs children when the coronavirus pandemic hit.
On Saturday, she retweeted Trump’s son’s admonishment of the news media with a comment: “Please Republicans do not use my assault for political gain. Help me pressure @CNN, @NBC, @wapo, @newyorker to question Joe Biden. Thank you”
Reade’s allegations gained traction among some supporters of Sanders, who quit the race last week amid mounting pressure as Biden swept most primary voting states. Reade said she only recently backed Sanders and previously leaned toward some of his Democratic rivals. She gave $5 through the ActBlue fundraising website to then-candidate Marianne Williamson in August 2019, public records show.
But since January, Reade has repeatedly plugged Sanders’s campaign while criticizing Biden on social media. A March 5 tweet called Biden “a misogynist pred” while touting a ticket led by Sanders with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as his running mate. “Tell Bernie to stay in! voters deserve to hear my silenced history w Biden,” Reade said on Twitter on March 22.
Two days later, the Intercept posted an article describing the alleged harassment and Reade’s appeals for help in January from the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, a project of the National Women’s Law Center that offers sexual harassment victims financial support and referrals to lawyers and public relations professionals. The Intercept story did not mention her assault allegations.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the fund said it does not offer financial assistance in every case. Uma Iyer, vice president for communications with the law center, said the group’s nonprofit status prohibits it from underwriting cases involving allegations against political candidates.
“In Ms. Reade’s situation our determination was based on the fact that her allegations were against a presidential candidate in an election year and primary season,” Iyer said. The group’s nonprofit designation, Iyer said, “mandates a strict and absolute prohibition on participating in electioneering or political activity, and we could not fund a public relations effort around these allegations without significant risk of running afoul of these strict legal rules.”
The day after the Intercept article posted, another media outlet, a podcast co-hosted by Sanders supporter Katie Halper, released an interview in which Reade described the alleged assault.
In the recent interviews with The Post, Reade said she could not remember exactly where in the Capitol complex she was when she met Biden to deliver a gym bag to him. She was wearing a skirt and no stockings because it was a warm day in April or May, she said.
“He put me up against the wall and took the bag,” she said. “He reached up underneath my skirt. . . . I remember two fingers. . . . It was such a nightmare.”
She said he asked, “Do you want to go somewhere else?” She said that when she pulled away, he said, “Come on, man, I thought you liked me,” then told her that she meant “nothing” before finally grabbing her shoulders and saying, “You’re okay.”
The friend who Reade said she told about the incident at the time had interned on Capitol Hill and was in college in Virginia at the time of the alleged assault.
“I still remember that she handed off the gym bag and then she was pinned up against the wall,” Reade’s friend said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because she feared online harassment and professional consequences. “His hands went under her skirt. . . . He pushed his fingers into her, not at her invitation. Not at her request. She was confused about why he thought it was okay to do that.”
Reade’s younger brother, Moulton, said she had told him parts of her experience with Biden but not the alleged sexual assault.
“I heard that there was a gym bag incident . . . and that he was inappropriate,” Moulton said. “I remember her telling me he said she was nothing to him.”
...Didnt realize this was as long as it is, sorry about this.....
Flores’s story inspired Reade to offer her own account to her local newspaper, the Union, in Nevada County, Calif, Reade said. The details in that article matched the narrative Reade gave The Post the next day in a telephone interview.
...
She said in that interview, on April 4, 2019, that on at least three occasions Biden put his hands on her shoulders and the base of her neck. She also said she walked in on an argument between two staffers, in which one suggested that Reade was being asked to serve drinks at a reception because Biden thought she was pretty and liked her legs.
She said the supervisors she later complained to dismissed her concerns, told her to wear less provocative clothing and took away responsibilities before finally asking her to resign.
In The Post interview last year, she laid more blame with Biden's staff for “bullying” her than with Biden.
“This is what I want to emphasize: It’s not him. It’s the people around him who keep covering for him,” Reade said, adding later, “For instance, he should have known what was happening to me. . . . Looking back now, that’s my criticism. Maybe he could have been a little more in touch with his own staff.”
The Post last year published other accusations of unwanted touching by Biden but not Reade’s. A friend that she said she had told of the harassment did not respond last year to requests for comment. That friend — the same one who in recent days confirmed that Reade told her of the alleged assault — said she had no memory of receiving calls from The Post.
After Reade went public with her account of harassment, she faced a backlash on social media. Her effusive praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin — she described him in a Medium post in December 2018 as a “compassionate, caring, visionary leader” — led to attacks that she was seeking to advance Russian interests.
Reade told The Post she had gained admiration for Putin while doing research on Russia for a novel. She said she took down the Putin-related posts because of the attacks.
Throughout the rest of 2019, she tweeted dozens of times at several Democratic contenders and at least once at Trump, saying that Biden sexually harassed her when she worked in his Senate office years earlier.
“I don’t have an agenda other than I just wanted my story told,” said Reade, who has a law degree and was working part time assisting families with special-needs children when the coronavirus pandemic hit.
On Saturday, she retweeted Trump’s son’s admonishment of the news media with a comment: “Please Republicans do not use my assault for political gain. Help me pressure @CNN, @NBC, @wapo, @newyorker to question Joe Biden. Thank you”
Reade’s allegations gained traction among some supporters of Sanders, who quit the race last week amid mounting pressure as Biden swept most primary voting states. Reade said she only recently backed Sanders and previously leaned toward some of his Democratic rivals. She gave $5 through the ActBlue fundraising website to then-candidate Marianne Williamson in August 2019, public records show.
But since January, Reade has repeatedly plugged Sanders’s campaign while criticizing Biden on social media. A March 5 tweet called Biden “a misogynist pred” while touting a ticket led by Sanders with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as his running mate. “Tell Bernie to stay in! voters deserve to hear my silenced history w Biden,” Reade said on Twitter on March 22.
Two days later, the Intercept posted an article describing the alleged harassment and Reade’s appeals for help in January from the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, a project of the National Women’s Law Center that offers sexual harassment victims financial support and referrals to lawyers and public relations professionals. The Intercept story did not mention her assault allegations.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the fund said it does not offer financial assistance in every case. Uma Iyer, vice president for communications with the law center, said the group’s nonprofit status prohibits it from underwriting cases involving allegations against political candidates.
“In Ms. Reade’s situation our determination was based on the fact that her allegations were against a presidential candidate in an election year and primary season,” Iyer said. The group’s nonprofit designation, Iyer said, “mandates a strict and absolute prohibition on participating in electioneering or political activity, and we could not fund a public relations effort around these allegations without significant risk of running afoul of these strict legal rules.”
The day after the Intercept article posted, another media outlet, a podcast co-hosted by Sanders supporter Katie Halper, released an interview in which Reade described the alleged assault.
In the recent interviews with The Post, Reade said she could not remember exactly where in the Capitol complex she was when she met Biden to deliver a gym bag to him. She was wearing a skirt and no stockings because it was a warm day in April or May, she said.
“He put me up against the wall and took the bag,” she said. “He reached up underneath my skirt. . . . I remember two fingers. . . . It was such a nightmare.”
She said he asked, “Do you want to go somewhere else?” She said that when she pulled away, he said, “Come on, man, I thought you liked me,” then told her that she meant “nothing” before finally grabbing her shoulders and saying, “You’re okay.”
The friend who Reade said she told about the incident at the time had interned on Capitol Hill and was in college in Virginia at the time of the alleged assault.
“I still remember that she handed off the gym bag and then she was pinned up against the wall,” Reade’s friend said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because she feared online harassment and professional consequences. “His hands went under her skirt. . . . He pushed his fingers into her, not at her invitation. Not at her request. She was confused about why he thought it was okay to do that.”
Reade’s younger brother, Moulton, said she had told him parts of her experience with Biden but not the alleged sexual assault.
“I heard that there was a gym bag incident . . . and that he was inappropriate,” Moulton said. “I remember her telling me he said she was nothing to him.”
...Didnt realize this was as long as it is, sorry about this.....
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
...
A few days after that interview, Moulton sent the text saying he wanted to clarify his remarks. He wrote that he recalled Reade telling him in the early 1990s that Biden had cornered her and put his hands under her clothes.
Another friend of Reade’s said that in 2006 or 2007 Reade told her Biden had touched her arm and behaved inappropriately. She had no other details, she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of concern she might face online attacks.
Reade said that in 1993 she filed a complaint with a congressional human resources or personnel office but did not remember the exact name. Her complaint dealt only with the alleged harassment, not the assault, she said.
The Post could find no record of the complaint, and Reade said she never received a copy. The Senate Office of Fair Employment Practices, which fielded complaints starting in 1992, was replaced under a 1995 law and is now called the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights.
Biden staffers who might have been alerted to such a complaint said they do not recall hearing of one, and Biden’s official Senate papers were donated to the University of Delaware but remain sealed from the public.
In interviews with a half-dozen former Biden staffers who overlapped with Reade, many were hesitant to cast doubt on an individual woman’s account but said Reade’s story did not match their experience in a tightknit office with high-ranking female staffers.
None of those reached by The Post recalled witnessing Biden putting his hands on Reade or the request that she serve drinks.
“There was never anything like that that was ever a part of the culture of working on the Hill at that time for Biden,” said Melissa Lefko, who worked as a staff assistant in 1993. “There were plenty of other senators I could point in your direction as known for their sexual predatory behavior of female staffers. Biden was never, ever one of those senators. Never. Never.”
In Medium posts in January and one in April 2019, Reade said no one on Capitol Hill would hire her after she complained about Biden’s behavior and the request that she serve drinks. In late 2018, she wrote that she left Washington to pursue an acting and artistic career, turned off by what she called the U.S. government’s “xenophobia” toward Russia. In a 2009 essay that noted Biden’s work on the Violence Against Women Act, she discussed moving from Washington to the Midwest to be with a boyfriend.
She occasionally has tweeted positively about Biden, saying in 2017, “My old boss speaks truth. Listen” with a link to a BBC story about Biden calling for the tech industry to help fight cancer.
Reade told The Post in a recent interview that she tweeted support of him because she admired some things about Biden despite the alleged assault. “Here’s the person I admire, who stands for all I believe in,” she said. “At the same time, that’s what happened to me personally.”
-Fin. Sorry I just wanted to get this in here since it finally hit a legitimate news site. It is the most up to date one I have seen.
A few days after that interview, Moulton sent the text saying he wanted to clarify his remarks. He wrote that he recalled Reade telling him in the early 1990s that Biden had cornered her and put his hands under her clothes.
Another friend of Reade’s said that in 2006 or 2007 Reade told her Biden had touched her arm and behaved inappropriately. She had no other details, she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of concern she might face online attacks.
Reade said that in 1993 she filed a complaint with a congressional human resources or personnel office but did not remember the exact name. Her complaint dealt only with the alleged harassment, not the assault, she said.
The Post could find no record of the complaint, and Reade said she never received a copy. The Senate Office of Fair Employment Practices, which fielded complaints starting in 1992, was replaced under a 1995 law and is now called the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights.
Biden staffers who might have been alerted to such a complaint said they do not recall hearing of one, and Biden’s official Senate papers were donated to the University of Delaware but remain sealed from the public.
In interviews with a half-dozen former Biden staffers who overlapped with Reade, many were hesitant to cast doubt on an individual woman’s account but said Reade’s story did not match their experience in a tightknit office with high-ranking female staffers.
None of those reached by The Post recalled witnessing Biden putting his hands on Reade or the request that she serve drinks.
“There was never anything like that that was ever a part of the culture of working on the Hill at that time for Biden,” said Melissa Lefko, who worked as a staff assistant in 1993. “There were plenty of other senators I could point in your direction as known for their sexual predatory behavior of female staffers. Biden was never, ever one of those senators. Never. Never.”
In Medium posts in January and one in April 2019, Reade said no one on Capitol Hill would hire her after she complained about Biden’s behavior and the request that she serve drinks. In late 2018, she wrote that she left Washington to pursue an acting and artistic career, turned off by what she called the U.S. government’s “xenophobia” toward Russia. In a 2009 essay that noted Biden’s work on the Violence Against Women Act, she discussed moving from Washington to the Midwest to be with a boyfriend.
She occasionally has tweeted positively about Biden, saying in 2017, “My old boss speaks truth. Listen” with a link to a BBC story about Biden calling for the tech industry to help fight cancer.
Reade told The Post in a recent interview that she tweeted support of him because she admired some things about Biden despite the alleged assault. “Here’s the person I admire, who stands for all I believe in,” she said. “At the same time, that’s what happened to me personally.”
-Fin. Sorry I just wanted to get this in here since it finally hit a legitimate news site. It is the most up to date one I have seen.
Fogdog
Well-Known Member
I'd prefer if we not get another inexperienced person.
There are plenty of women with experience in public office that would make a great choice to be VP.
doublejj
Well-Known Member
I normal times I would agree, but we need to beat trump first......and Michelle has 8 years experience as Barak's counselor' in the White House, she already knows her way around. Michelle Obama is more electable than the others...
norcalreppin77
Well-Known Member
Yea lets elect a lady that locked up 1500 marijuana offenders and then laughed about it. Your my new mentor
Fogdog
Well-Known Member
Given how old Biden is, I prefer that we have an experienced person ready to step up . That said, I'd vote for that ticket.
There is a basis for claiming that Ms Obama would be less electable than, say, Tammy Duckworth or Amy Klobuchar.
Fogdog
Well-Known Member
You know your propaganda. I'll give you credit for that. You even get extra credit for citing a propaganda falsehood.
norcalreppin77
Well-Known Member
Propoganda thats great, do research.