Biden has to speak
Women must be heard, and the accused need to address claims with transparency, respect.
Accusations that Joe Biden sexually assaulted a former Senate staff member on Capitol Hill 27 years ago have been the topic of vigorous discussion and aggressive vetting over the past three weeks.
So far, the former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has relied on a long list of prominent supporters — many of them women deeply supportive of the #MeToo movement — to speak out in his defense.
“I believe Joe Biden,” said former 2018 Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Hillary Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former President Barack Obama and Biden’s former rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders, have all endorsed Biden in recent weeks.
These are powerful, persuasive surrogates, but they aren’t nearly enough. Neither is the strong denial issued earlier this month by his campaign, which stated the incident “absolutely did not happen.”
Voters deserve to hear from the candidate himself.
That might happen soon. Reports late Thursday suggest Biden will address the allegations directly Friday morning. If so, that’s a welcome if overdue development.
Biden has until now refused opportunities to address the accusations by Tara Reade, who worked for Biden in the early 1990s. She says the then-powerful senator pinned her against a wall and penetrated her with his fingers while they were alone.
Each day he has remained silent, new details seemed to emerge about the alleged 1993 incident. Business Insider reported on Monday, for example, that Reade’s former neighbor says she remembers Reade telling her in the mid-1990s about previously being assaulted by Biden.
Of course, nothing that Biden says now would likely put the matter to rest. When decades have passed, it can be extraordinarily hard for anyone from the outside to know exactly what happened. What has changed since the launch of the #MeToo movement, however, is that it is no longer acceptable to simply dismiss claims by women just because they are dated, or because they lack proof sufficient for a courtroom.
Women must be heard, and the accused should address those accusations with candor, transparency and respect.
In this case, Reade has been heard. Her accusation has been carried in nearly every major newspaper, including a thorough vetting by the New York Times that found no pattern of abuse by Biden. And it has been the subject of intense coverage on cable news. That should continue. And yet it’s also quite possible that in the end, people will be left to decide for themselves what to make of the accusations.
That’s what happened with Brett Kavanaugh when allegations of sexual assault surfaced during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings. With the evidence inconclusive, everyone from ordinary citizens to the decisionmakers inside the Senate had to decide for themselves what impact the allegation had on Kavanaugh’s fitness for office. That’s also what happened in each of more than a dozen allegations by women who claim they were victims of sexual assault or other sexual misconduct by President Donald Trump. Voters have made up their own minds.
Will Biden be angry and combative, as Kavanaugh was during his hearings? If so, voters may question Biden’s temperament just as many did in Kavanaugh’s case. Will Biden belittle Reade, as Trump has so often done to other women? If so, Democrats who have spent four years disgusted at Trump’s treatment of women will have a tough reckoning to make with Biden’s performance.
We believe Biden is unlikely to follow either of these modes of behavior. There is nothing in his long record in public life to suggest he would, and supporters have been right to emphasize that the alleged assault would be grossly out of step with the way he has conducted himself over many decades. That doesn’t mean Biden didn’t do what Reade accuses him of. Her accusations are serious, and Democrats must not dismiss them just because Trump has been accused of even worse.
If Biden expects his voters to stick with him, he’ll need to convince them that he’s someone they can still believe in. He should take that opportunity on Friday.