WASHINGTON — President Trump advised Joe Biden to “fight” sexual assault allegations from Tara Reade in a new interview Friday — but acknowledged he found the accuser’s story “compelling.”
Speaking just hours after the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee went on the record to deny Reade’s charges that he assaulted her in 1993, the president offered his advice on the Dan Bongino Show — claiming he himself had been a victim of “nonsense false accusations.”
“It’s his problem, but I like to get in front of it and I just deny it. If it’s not true, you deny it,” Trump said in an interview with the conservative radio host when asked if Biden should release records which may contain more details on the alleged incident.
“I would just say to Joe Biden: Just go out and fight it,” the president continued, suggesting he was even “sticking up for” his political opponent.
Trump — who himself has been accused in the past of sexual misconduct by more than 20 women, denying each claim — said he had been keeping up with the charges from Reade, a former Senate staffer who claims Biden pinned her against a wall, put his hand under her skirt and assaulted her when she worked for him in 1993.
“I watched Tara and she seems very credible. The mother was very credible,” he said, referring to a video which emerged this week allegedly showing Reade’s now-deceased mother calling into Larry King Live about the assault.
The president told Bongino he was furious that Democrats steadfastly backed Christine Blasey Ford, Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser, during his 2018 confirmation hearings.
“She’s far more convincing than Blasey Ford,” he said of Reade. “What they did to that family and that man is a disgrace” he added of the Supreme Court justice.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany echoed Trump’s comments in her first ever press briefing on Friday afternoon when asked to clarify his remarks on Bongino’s show.
“I think it was a great miscarriage of justice what happened with Justice Brett Kavanaugh,” McEnany said.
“That was an embarrassment for the Democratic Party to have dragged the name of a very respectable man through the mud like that. So I’ll leave it at that.”