-A former Senate staffer for Joe Biden, Tara Reade,
claims that he sexually assaulted her in 1993,
in the Capitol, when Biden was a senator.
Biden's campaign says this absolutely did not happen.
This isn't the first time
Reade has made an allegation against Biden,
though it is the first time she's made such a serious one.
Last year, as Biden was preparing to run for president,
about a half a dozen women accused
Biden of touching them in a way
that made them feel uncomfortable.
-And the boundaries of protected personal space have been reset,
and I get it. I get it.
And I'll be much more mindful.
That's my responsibility.
-Reade was one of those women,
but, in interviews with The Post and other outlets,
she did not mention or hint at anything more serious.
Since she made her sexual assault allegation,
The Post and The New York Times
have published investigative reports about this.
Both reports have found a friend
who anonymously corroborated Reade's story,
but they also find half a dozen to a dozen former staffers
who do not recall something like this,
or who said they outright didn't hear about an allegation
taking place, despite Reade saying she told them.
Biden responded to the allegation
in an interview on MSNBC on May 1st.
-Would you please go on the record with the American people?
Did you sexually assault Tara Reade?
-No. It is not true.
I'm saying unequivocally it never,
never happened, and it didn't.
It never happened.
-He urged the National Archives,
where he says his personnel records would be located,
to release anything related to Tara Reade,
saying he's confident there's no complaint about him in there.
In the past few days, calls for Biden
to respond have been elevated,
after new details related to the claim,
including a CNN clip that resurfaced from 1993,
in late April, have risen.
-Besides go to the press. -A woman calls in to the show
and says her daughter is having unspecified problems
with a prominent US senator and asks for help.
-The only thing she could've done was go to the press,
and she chose not to do it, out of respect for him.
-She had a story to tell, but, out of respect
for the person she worked for, she didn't tell it?
-That's true. -Reade hears the clip
and says that it is her mother, who died in 2016.
A couple days after that,
Reade's former neighbor in California,
who lived next door to Reade a couple years after Reade left
Washington, DC, says that she did hear
Reade tell her about a sexual assault by Biden.
She says she remembers hearing Reade tell her exactly what
Reade has alleged Biden did to her.
There's an emerging rift in the Democratic Party
about how to address this.
Two years earlier, when Bret Kavanaugh
was facing an assault allegation during his confirmation
to the Supreme Court, Democrats, including Joe Biden,
said that women who make such claims
should be presumed to be telling the truth.
-Why is it real for Dr Ford, but not for Tara Reade?
-Because the facts are.
Look, 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.
The truth matters. It's period.
I fought my entire life to change,
to change the whole notion of the law and cultural sexual,
around the culture on sexual assault,
and I fought to strengthen and protect
the process for survivors.
-This is all happening six months
before the presidential election,
where Democrats want to contrast themselves with Trump
in every way, especially his character.
The president has been accused
by more than a dozen women of groping or even sexual assault.
-So, it could be false accusations.
I know all about false accusations.
I've been falsely charged numerous times.
-Leading Democratic women in the party
are appearing to do a delicate dance about how to address this,
saying that they believe Tara Reade should be heard.
-I have complete respect for the whole #MeToo movement.
I have four daughters.
-But also appearing to give Biden the benefit of the doubt.
-Joe Biden is Joe Biden.
-Looking at his long record of working
to pass legislation like the Violence Against Women Act.
-He is the personification of hope and optimism
and authenticity.
So I wanna remove all doubt in anyone's mind.
I have a great comfort level with the situation, as I see it,
with all the respect in the world
for any woman who comes forward,
but with all the highest regard for Joe Biden,
and that's what I have to say about that.
Thank you.