Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said Joe Biden had a “pretty skillful answer” to voters who are reconsidering supporting him over an allegation that he sexually assaulted a former Senate staffer.
“On the one hand, he wants to absolutely flatly deny the truth of the allegation, the very damaging allegation, shocking allegation … that he sexually assaulted her in the halls of Congress. But on the other hand, while he wants to deny her allegation, he doesn’t want to in any way to dismiss the allegations of women in general,” Wallace said Friday.
“It’s one of those things — that I flatly deny the allegation, but I’m not in any way going to go after the accuser,” he said.
Biden advised voters who believe Reade’s allegation not to vote for him.
“If they believe Tara Reade, they probably shouldn’t vote for me. I wouldn’t vote for me if I believed Tara Reade,” he said Thursday.
Biden has vehemently denied the allegation that he penetrated her with his fingers without her consent decades ago.
Wallace said he doesn’t expect the allegation will remain a storyline through Election Day, unless more evidence comes to light.
“I think that as it now stands, it goes away in the sense that, you know, she has told her story. It’s a shocking story. It’s a disturbing story. But she doesn’t have any real evidence of it, so it’s a classic ‘he said, she said.’ Now, if she is able to find something that provides more backing to her case or if somebody else were to come out and tell a similar story and it’s worth pointing out that no one else has come out and told a similar story … but nothing anywhere close to the level of sexual assault,” Wallace said.
Wallace also noted that Trump has faced similar allegations, and voters who believe Reade are unlikely to vote for him.
“President Trump does not come in with clean hands on this either,” Wallace said. “There’ve obviously been a number of women who have accused him of sexual assault, so I don’t know that people that are upset by even the allegation of sexual assault will say that’s it, I’m not going for Biden, I’ll go for President Trump instead, who has also denied similar allegations.”
