Video shows Biden accuser Tara Reade's mom speaking about daughter's 'problems' on Larry King Live
A clip from a 1993 episode of 'Larry King Live' has resurfaced wherein the mother of Tara Reade, who has accused Joe Biden of sexual assault while working as his aide, referred to the "problems" that her daughter had faced while working as a staffer for the then Delaware representative in the US Senate.
In an interview over the phone with Fox News on April 24, Reade confirmed that her mother had indeed called the show. Although Biden's presidential campaign has denied Reade's allegations, the video can be used as evidence supporting her claim, even though her mother hadn't specifically referred to sexual assault.
The transcript of the broadcast from August 1993, reported by The Intercept, detailed a woman from San Luis Obispo County, California, calling in to the show to narrate her daughter's experiences at Capitol Hall.
"San Luis Obispo, California, hello," King starts the conversation. "Yes, hello. I’m wondering what a staffer would do besides go to the press in Washington? My daughter has just left there, after working for a prominent senator, and could not get through with her problems at all, and the only thing she could have done was go to the press, and she chose not to do it out of respect for him," the caller responds.
"In other words, she had a story to tell but, out of respect for the person she worked for, she didn’t tell it?" King asks. "That’s true," the woman responds and King takes to the panel to discuss the claim. The caller was Reade's mother Jeanette Altimus, as confirmed to Fox News.
Reade took to Twitter to confirm that it was her mother who called in to 'Larry King Live' in 1993.
"This is my mom. I miss her so much and her brave support of me," said Reade. Her mother passed away in 2016. Reade's story first resurfaced in an Intercept article dated March 25.
Katie Halper, a podcast host, interviewed Reade last month about the alleged encounter in 1993.
She told Halper that a senior staffer asked her to bring then Senator Biden his gym bag near the US capitol building.
"He greeted me, he remembered my name, and then we were alone. It was the strangest thing," Reade told Halper. "There was no like, exchange really. He just had me up against the wall." Read explained that she was attired in "a business skirt" but “wasn’t wearing stockings — it was a hot day.”
She continued her account saying, “His hands were on me and underneath my clothes, and he went down my skirt and then up inside it and he penetrated me with his fingers and he was kissing me at the same time and he was saying some things to me.” Read alleged that Biden first asked her if she wished “to go somewhere else.”
“I pulled away, he got finished doing what he was doing,” she went on to explain. "He said: ‘Come on, man. I heard you liked me.’” She said she'd tried to come clean about this story last year but no seemed to lend her an ear. In April, she filed a criminal complaint against Biden with the police in Washington, DC.
Reade recalled being furious at her mother for calling in to CNN after she watched the episode. She told Fox News she'd had a dream about her on the night of April 23, and the next day she got a phone call from The Intercept who informed her that they had found the transcript of her mother's phone call.
Read said she's gotten emotional when she saw the clip on April 24 and broke down into tears, and told Fox News that it had been years since she had heard her mother's voice. Her mother had initially advised her to file a complaint at the time of the alleged assault, Reade revealed. "Always listen to your mom, always listen to your mom," she added, tearfully.
Even so, Reade's mother's interview isn't evidence of Reade's allegations of sexual assault and could possibly refer to the bullying allegations from last year. Reade had claimed that Biden's staffers had bullied her, according to a report by The Washington Post. Reade came forward with her allegations against Biden last year when multiple women also alleged he had touched them inappropriately.
Biden's campaign is yet to comment on the recent developments, though they previously denied Reade’s allegations.