Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called attempts to keep people from talking about a sexual assault allegation against former Vice President Joe Biden “a form of gaslighting.”
Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) spoke during an online discussion hosted by The Wing, a networking group for women, on Tuesday. One questioner asked Ocasio-Cortez about the allegation against Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, saying she “really resent[s] the fact that [Biden] is someone who has a really long history of being creepy to women,” according to CBS News.
“What you’re voicing is so legitimate and real. That’s why I find this kind of silencing of all dissent to be a form of gaslighting,” the freshman congresswoman answered. “I think it’s legitimate to talk about these things. And if we want, if we again want to have integrity, you can’t say, you know — both believe women, support all of this, until it inconveniences you, until it inconveniences us.”
Tara Reade, a former staff assistant to Biden when he was a US senator, said on a podcast last month that Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993. Nobody witnessed the alleged assault. Reade told her brother and a friend about it at the time.
Ocasio-Cortez said Democrats should not prioritize beating President Trump over openly discussing Biden’s history with women, which includes several accusations of inappropriate behavior. Doing so would be the “exact opposite of integrity,” she said.
“I think a lot of us are just in this moment where it’s like, how did we get here? You know, it almost felt like we started this cycle where we had kind of moved on from, you know, from all of this. And now it feels like we’re kind of back in it,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “And, you know, the most diverse field that we’ve ever seen — that we’re kind of back, kind of replaying old movies in a way.”
Reade later responded gratefully to Ocasio-Cortez for the congresswoman’s comments, saying, “I’m very humbled and honored because she is literally the only politician that has spoken up on my behalf.”
Biden has yet to acknowledge Reade’s allegation, though his campaign has denied the charge. In March 2019, Biden released a statement denying charges made by several women that the former vice president had inappropriately hugged, kissed, and smelled them.
Reade filed a criminal complaint against Biden last week, though not enough evidence may now exist to warrant an investigation into Reade’s claim.
The New York Times investigated Reade’s claims and published its findings on Sunday. The Times reported that it “found no pattern of sexual misconduct, beyond the hugs, kisses, and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.” The newspaper later edited the sentence to read just “The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct” after the Biden campaign complained about the phrasing.
The New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet later justified the edit, made without issuing a correction or note, in an interview with Times media reporter Ben Smith.
“Even though a lot of us, including me, had looked at it before the story went into the paper, I think that the campaign thought that the phrasing was awkward and made it look like there were other instances in which he had been accused of sexual misconduct. And that’s not what the sentence was intended to say,” Baquet said.