Welcome to Byron York’s Daily Memo newsletter.
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to receive the newsletter.
WHO WILL BE FIRST TO ASK JOE BIDEN THE TARA READE QUESTION? It’s more than a little amazing that it hasn’t happened yet. There is growing corroboration behind Reade’s accusation that then-Sen. Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993, when Reade worked in Biden’s office. We now have accounts that by the mid-1990s, Reade told her brother, her mother, a friend, a next-door neighbor, and another friend about the incident. We also have the tape of the 1993 Larry King program in which a woman, whom Reade says was her mother, called to talk about her daughter’s issues with a well-known senator. In light of all that, it might seem reasonable that at least one reporter — just one — would take the opportunity of a Biden interview to ask about Tara Reade.
Yes, his campaign has denied it — “This absolutely did not happen,” a Biden spokeswoman said — but there’s been no direct questioning of Biden himself. The former vice president has given a few interviews recently, and none of the journalists doing the questioning brought up Reade. Most recently, an interview with the CBS station in Miami skipped over the topic entirely. That can’t last forever, can it?
Subscribe today to the Washington Examiner magazine that will keep you up to date with what’s going on in Washington. SUBSCRIBE NOW: Just $1.00 an issue!
ONE UNDENIABLE FACT: When Democrats chose to challenge the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination the way they did in 2018, they set a new standard for sexual assault allegations. Christine Blasey Ford’s charge, more than 35 years old when she leveled it against Kavanaugh, had no contemporaneous corroboration, and no other evidence to support it. The crazier stuff — like Julie Swetnick and Michael Avenatti’s “gang rape” accusation — appeared to be made up out of thin air. And yet Democrats in responsible positions took them seriously, forced the Senate Judiciary Committee and the FBI to investigate, and adopted a mantra of “believe all women.”
One of those Democrats was…Joe Biden. “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally,” Biden said in 2018, “you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real…” Now, the most obvious question in the world is: Does that apply to Tara Reade, too? If someone asks it.
THE TRUMP-BIDEN POLL GAP: Biden is a little more than six points ahead of Trump in the RealClearPolitics average of head-to-head polls. It’s been that way for a while. Interesting thing is, in recent weeks the two seem to be tracking each other, though a few points apart. Trump goes up, Biden goes up. Trump goes down, Biden goes down.
DeSANTIS FIGHTS BACK: Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis took a lot of criticism, in the national media and especially in the political Twitterverse, for waiting until the first of April to issue a stay-at-home order in the coronavirus crisis. How tough was the criticism? Just google “DeSantis” and “blood on his hands.” But now it appears Florida’s experience, while serious, has been less severe than DeSantis’ critics predicted. And on Tuesday, DeSantis was at the White House, where he had a chance to defend himself.
“What have the results been?” DeSantis responded when asked about Florida’s “late” start. “You’re looking at some of the most draconian orders issued in some of the states — and compare Florida in terms of our hospitalizations per 100,000, in terms of our fatalities per 100,000. You go from D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, you name it — Florida has done better. I’m not criticizing those states, but everyone in the media was saying Florida would be like New York or Italy, and that has not happened.”
