Stacey Abrams Doesn’t Believe That Joe Biden Sexually Assaulted Tara Reade
May 12, 2020Stacey Abrams, a former gubernatorial candidate in Georgia and a rising star in the Democratic Party, doesn’t believe that Biden sexually assaulted Tara Reade.
“I believe his denial,” Abrams told VICE TV’s Anand Giridharadas on the latest episode of "Seat at the Table," which airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. EST. Abrams endorsed Biden on Tuesday, but she said she can only support him because she doesn’t find Reade’s allegations credible.
“I believe women deserve to be heard,” she said. “I believe their allegations deserve to be vetted.”
“If I thought that this man had done that, then I could not be in this space,” she said.
Abrams hasn’t been shy about her ambitions: She wants to be vice president. “I would be an excellent running mate,” she told Elle last month. “If I am selected, I am prepared and excited to serve.”
Earlier this year, Reade accused then-senator Biden of sexually assaulting her in a corridor on Capitol Hill in 1993 when she was working as an aide in his office. She has said she filed a harassment claim at the time, but it has not come to light, and Biden staffers from the time say they don’t remember a complaint being made.
Reade did discuss the incident with at least one friend at the time, and in an old court filing from the mid-1990s her ex-husband wrote that Reade had had problems with sexual harassment at a senator’s office.
Reade has called for Biden to drop out.
Biden has flatly denied the allegations. “I am saying unequivocally: It never, never happened. It didn’t. It never happened,” the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said on MSNBC earlier this month.
Cover: Stacey Abrams speaks during the Martin & Coretta S. King Unity Breakfast on March 1, 2020 in Selma, Alabama. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
