Tara Reade claims Biden told her 'I want to 'f**k you', wants him to drop out of 2020 presidential race
The rape accusation against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is turning more serious with each passing day. Tara Reade, the 56-year-old woman who has brought the charges against the former vice president, added new details about the incident that allegedly happened in 1993 during an on-camera interview and wanted to see the latter exit the presidential race. Biden is the only candidate in the fray awaiting to be officially nominated by the Democratic Party.
Reade, who was a Senate aide to Biden at the time of the alleged incident when the politician was a senator from Delaware, said in a March 25 revelation that Biden pushed her against the wall when they were alone in a Capitol Hill hallway and penetrated her with his fingers. Now, speaking to Megyn Kelly on MK Exclusive, she added that Biden ‘said something vulgar’ to her during the alleged sexual assault.
“'He said I want to f*** you,” Reade, who was 29 then, told the former Fox News and NBC News anchor who currently is self-employed and produces her own content and posts it on YouTube. Earlier on Thursday, May 7, she said announced on Twitter about getting the first sit-in interview with Reade.
“And he said it low. And I was pushing away and I remember my knee hurting because our knees, because he had opened my legs with his knee and our kneecaps clashed, so I felt this sharp pain,” Reade said. “His fingers were inside of my private area, my vagina,” she added. The ex-staffer said Biden told her she ‘was nothing’ before walking away and those words stayed with her life thereafter.
“I remember small things. I remember trying to put my shoe back on because I came out of my shoe and I remember my knee hurting and I remember the smell,” Reade said, adding that she wanted to say stop but is not sure if she managed to express it.
Reade doesn't want to see Biden running for the president
When Kelly sought her message for the Democratic nominee, Reade said he ‘should not be running on character’ for the president of the US. When asked, she said she would want Biden to drop out from the presidential race but knew that he would not.
"I want to say you and I were there, Joe Biden, please step forward and be held accountable, you should not be running on character for president of the United States," Reade said.
Biden is contesting the presidential race for the third time this year after the failed attempts in 1988 and 2008.
Reade also told her interviewer that an apology now wouldn’t make much of a difference, saying it’s ‘a little late’. She even revealed that she had tried to reach out to Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris when they were still in the presidential race but did not get a response. The former Senate staffer said she is ready to testify under oath and cross examination but she would undergo a polygraph test only if Biden underwent it first.
“I'm not a criminal,” Reade said. “Joe Biden should take the polygraph. What kind of precedent does that set for survivors of violence? Does that mean we're presumed guilty? And we all have to take polygraphs. So I will take one if Joe Biden takes one, but I am not a criminal,” she added.
Biden spoke out further on May 7 afternoon, telling a Florida news channel after news of her asking him to drop out began making waves: “Nothing ever happened with Tara Reade.”
1996 court document mentions Reade's 'sexual harassment'
Biden spoke on the issue last week when he denied it outright. He also approached the Senate secretary to look for and release records related to the complaint but was refused.
Meanwhile, The San Luis Obispo Tribune, California, came up with an exclusive report on Thursday, May 7, saying a court document from 1996 showed Reade telling her ex-husband that she was sexually harassed while working for Biden in 1993.
The declaration obtained exclusively by the daily though does not say that Biden committed the harassment nor does it mention Reade’s more recent allegations. Reade’s then husband Theodore Dronen wrote the declaration. Dronen was contesting a restraining order that Reade filed against him after he filed for divorce, Superior Court records reveal. In the declaration, Dronen wrote that Reade told him about “a problem she was having at work regarding sexual harassment, in US Senator Joe Biden’s office.”