But that’s not stopping the president’s White House aides and campaign staff from going after Biden on the Tara Reade allegation.
A sexual assault allegation against his Democratic challenger is offering President Donald Trump with a new message for women voters: Joe Biden is just as bad as I am.
Trump is accused of rape and is fighting attempts to force him turn over a DNA sample. Two dozen other women have accused him of varying degrees of sexual assault and misconduct. He was caught on tape bragging that his celebrity allowed him to do the precise thing that Biden is accused of.
Nevertheless, his aides have latched on to onetime staffer Tara Reade’s accusation that Biden sexually assaulted her 27 years ago, pushing her up against a wall and penetrating her with his fingers. “Believe all women means all women — you don’t get to choose,” White House adviser Kellyanne Conway told Fox News Friday.
The Trump camp’s strategy, despite the obvious hypocrisy, is transparent, said political consultants from both parties.
“They are pushing her story relentlessly and the targets are young people, progressives and women,” said David Axelrod, the architect of former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. “They don’t expect to win these voters. No one who shuns Biden because of Tara Reade is likely to flock to Trump, given his sordid history. They simply want to depress Biden’s numbers. In a marginal race, even a few votes shaved off his total in some closely contested states can make a difference.”
Tim Miller, a Republican consultant and Trump critic, said the attacks are also designed to give moderate Republicans an excuse to vote for Trump. “Give people who know deep down that Trump is bad a ‘but’ talking point. Absolve themselves of responsibility for Trump’s manifest immortality and unfitness,” Miller said. “Everything they do is about muddying the waters.”
And Democratic pollster Peter Hart predicted the attempts to use Reade against Biden are just a hint of what will come this autumn. “The only thing I feel confident in predicting is that Trump will not bring up the tragic death of Neilia,” Hart said, referring to Biden’s first wife who died in a car accident along with their 1-year-old daughter in 1972. “Beyond that, this is the protégé of Roy Cohen.”
Biden personally addressed the allegation by Reade for the first time Friday on NBC, stating that the event she described did not happen and asking that her shifting explanations be analyzed carefully.
