Biden Offers Response to Sexual Assault Allegation
Carlos Barria/Reuters
We ran the numbers: There are 2315 news articles covering this topic. 36% (832) are left leaning, 38% (870) center, 26% (613) right leaning.
On Friday, former Vice President Joe Biden denied an allegation of sexual assault by a former Senate aide, Tera Reade. While left-leaning articles highlight that Biden’s response attempted to address concerns while denying allegations, right-leaning articles highlight that Biden’s allegations are unfairly not subject to as much scrutiny as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s.
A left-leaning article by The New York Times highlights in an interview on MSNBC, Biden sounded emphatic and at times agitated, as he tried to address concerns about Reade’s claim by saying she had a right to be heard while also insisting that he had not assaulted her. The article states that Trump has been accused of sexual assault and misconduct by more than a dozen women, while Biden has faced a single allegation of assault that has flummoxed his campaign.
NPR published a centrist article reporting that a former neighbor of Reade named Lynda LaCasse told NPR that Reade told her about the alleged assault approximately 25 years ago. Later on Friday, Biden released a letter to Secretary of the Senate Julie Adams, asking her to take “whatever steps are necessary to establish the location of the records.”
A right-leaning article by Fox News highlights that Biden had already been interviewed or featured in town hall events at least 15 times since Reade detailed her claims on journalist Katie Halper’s podcast back on March 25. Another right-leaning article by Fox News reports that Trump’s reelection campaign released a video Friday alleging a “double standard” on sexual-assault allegations, comparing how high-profile Democrats handled allegations against Kavanaugh with how they are handling allegations against Biden.