Joe Biden's accuser finally tells her full story - Katie Halper's interview with Tara Reade
Katie Halper: Hello and welcome to the Katie Halper show I'm about to play an excerpt from an interview that I did with Tara Reade. The full episode will be up shortly. As a warning, Tara discusses sexual assault during this interview.
Tara was one of eight women to accuse Joe Biden of some form of inappropriate touching last spring after Nevada politician Lucy Flores alleged that the vice president inappropriately touched her during her run for congress. Tara told journalists that in 1993 when she was a staff assistant to then senator Biden, he put his hands on her shoulders and rubbed his fingers up and down her neck. But Tara says there's more to her story and she considered telling it last spring, but after coming forward and being smeared as a Russian agent and being doxed, she did not. We now know from Ryan Grim at 324 article on The Intercept, Tara did try to come forward once again in January of 2020.
Tara turned to Times Up, the non-profit dedicated to helping women in the post me-too world tell their story. But Times Up, Ryan Grim reports, was concerned such a political story involving a potential presidential candidate could affect their non-profit status. So here Tara finally tells the rest of the story that she hasn't been able to tell in the past. Not surprisingly, there are no witnesses to Tara's story of alleged assault, but Tara's brother and Tara's close friend, both of whom I spoke to recalled Tara telling them about the incident at the time.
Here is an excerpt. I'll be releasing the full interview shortly. And this opens with Tara describing a superior calling her into her office to ask her to do an errand. So she says that she...
Tara Reade: Called me in and said, "I want you to take this to Joe. He wants it. He wants you to bring it. Hurry. And I said, "Okay." And it was a gym bag. She said, you know, take the gym bag. She called it an 'athletic bag'. And you know she said he was down towards the Capitol and he'll meet you. And so I went down, and I was heading down towards there and he was at first talking to someone. I could see him at a distance and they went away and then um we were in like the side. It was like the side area. And um he just said "Hey, come here Tara and then I handed him the thing and he greeted me. He remembered my name. And then we were alone, and it was the strangest thing. There was no like exchange really. He just had me up against the wall. And um I was wearing a skirt. You know a business skirt, but I wasn't wearing stockings. It was kind of a hot day that day, and I was wearing heels. And I remember my legs had been hurting from the marble, you know of the Capitol. And so I remember that kind of stuff. I remember like I was wearing a blouse and he just had me up against the wall, and the wall was cold. And I remember he- it happened all at once. The gym bag - I don't know where it went. I handed it to him and it was gone. And then his hands were on me and underneath my clothes. And um yeah and then he went um.. he went down my skirt and up inside it and he uh penetrated me with his fingers. And um I- uh he was kissing me at the same time, and he was saying something to me. He was saying several things, and I can't remember everything he said. I remember a couple of things. I remember him saying first like as he was doing it, "Do you wanna go somewhere else? And then him saying to me when I pulled away he um got finished doing what he was doing and I kind of was pulled back and he said, "Come on, man. I heard you liked me." And that phrase stayed with me because I kept thinking what I might've said, and I can't remember exactly if he said "I thought" or if "I heard" but it's like he like that I had done this. Like I don't know, and for me it was like everything shattered in that moment, because I knew like we were alone and it was over, right? He wasn't trying to do anything more, but I looked up to him. He was like my father's age. He was this champion of women's rights in my eyes, and I couldn't believe it was happening. It seemed surreal. And I knew I just felt sick because when I pulled back, he looked annoyed and he said um something else to me that I don't want to say. And then he said- I must have looked shocked. And then he grabbed by the shoulders. I don't know how I looked, but I must have looked something, because he grabbed me by the shoulders and he said "You're okay you're fine. You're okay you're fine." And then he walked away and he went on with his day and what I remember next was being in the Russell building like where the big windows are in the stairs by myself, and my body - I was shaking everywhere because it was cold all of the sudden. I don't know - I just felt like I was shaking- just everywhere, and I was trying to grasp what just happened and what I should do or what I should say. But I knew it was bad because he was so angry. Like when he left, I could feel, you know how when you know someone's angry they don't necessarily have to say anything. Like he smiles when he's angry and you can just feel it emanating from him.
Katie Halper: Do you want to share that thing, like you said "I don't wanna say what he said. That thing he said to you."
Tara Reade: Um. Yeah I guess I could.
Katie Halper: I mean you don't have to
Tara Reade: It's okay. It's just um. It's almost like giving a weapon to them.
Katie Halper: How so?
Tara Reade: Well, it's like, I don't want them to know how much it hurt. I don't know. I don't what him to know...
Katie Halper: That like - that you remembered it?
Tara Reade: Yeah just I don't know- But yeah I can say it. Um. Yeah there's something he said that I didn't want to say, and I didn't want to say it because it's the thing that stays in my head over and over like. And um it's the thing that kind of stayed with me over the years. But he said, um. When he had me against the wall after he had done- after I pulled away and he said, "Hey" you know "Come on, I heard you liked me." And I um knew he was angry right after he took his finger. He just like pointed at me and he said "You're nothing to me." And he just looked at me and goes, "You're nothing. Nothing." And then I must've reacted. And I think he only said it twice. But I just heard the word 'nothing'. And I must've reacted because that's when he took me by the shoulders and he said, you know, "You're okay. You're fine. You're okay." But then afterwards like it kept replaying in my head and like last April when all that stuff came out, I got really really sad about it. And the thing that I remember most- almost more than the assault itself, was that I was nothing. And he was right. That's how people treated me. That's how the whole office treated me. And I have no platform. I am no one. And to him I'm nothing. So yeah. Um. So people want to know why women don't come forward, that's a good example why.
Katie Halper: Stand by for the full interview.