Tara Reade Allegations Stir Democratic Unrest
Democrats are reassessing the potential damage to Joe Biden after new details surface.
It started as a little noticed story in a small newspaper in Northern California last year, before Joe Biden had officially become a candidate for president.
Against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement, a local woman named Tara Reade said the former vice president had inappropriately touched her.
Her account got little traction during the Democratic primary. But roughly a year later — after Reade claimed sexual assault and new details surfaced in recent days — it has metastasized into a serious campaign liability, entering the political mainstream just as Biden seeks to unite a fractious Democratic Party behind him.
“Just getting pulled into that discussion harms Biden,” said Amanda Renteria, who was national political director of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. “Headlines matter no matter what the facts end up being. … This isn’t going away, obviously. And what you’ve learned in the last 48 hours is this is a narrative folks are going to want to push.”
After Business Insider published two on-the-record sources Monday saying Reade told them about the accusations years ago — resulting in a rush of follow-up media reports — Republicans quickly amplified Reade’s claims, and Democrats began reassessing the potential damage.
One Democratic strategist said, “Jumping from Daily Caller to CNN seems like a worrying trend.”
Biden has denied the accusations, and many Democrats, including Renteria, suspect they are politically motivated. But the drip of news is forcing high-profile senators, including potential vice presidential candidates, to defend Biden. At a minimum, it is altering Democrats’ messaging around the presidential campaign at a critical time.
Sens. Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar — both potential vice presidential selections — have praised Biden when asked about Reade’s allegations in recent interviews. So has Stacey Abrams, another vice presidential contender. Referring to The New York Times’ review of Reade’s accusations, she told The Daily Beast that “nothing in the Times review suggests anything other than what I already knew: That Joe Biden is a man of highest integrity who will make all women proud as our next president.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/23/tara-reade-biden-202785
On Tuesday, the day Clinton endorsed Biden, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, one of the most outspoken advocates of the #MeToo movement, was asked whether Democrats were contradicting themselves with their handling of Reade’s accusations and those against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“No, and I stand by Vice President Biden,”
Gillibrand said on a conference call. “He’s devoted his life to supporting women, and he has vehemently denied this allegation.”
Some Democrats fear the accusation — even if it fails to stick with the electorate — could muddy a potent line of attack on President Donald Trump, who has been accused of sexual assault and misconduct by multiple women, and enable his allies to mount false equivalency attacks against Biden.
Chris Lippincott, a Texas-based Democratic strategist who ran a super PAC opposing Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018, said that “one of the things that has consistently aided [Trump] is that he is held to such a low standard. That’s not a standard to which Joe Biden is held.”
Regardless of the merits of the Reade accusation, Lippincott said, “It creates a problem for Biden that it would not for Trump.”
Tara Reade allegations stir Democratic unrest