‘This is a messy moment, and I think we need to acknowledge that…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) It “certainly seems as though something has happened” between Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden and his former congressional staffer, Tara Reade, who accused Biden of sexual assault last year, according to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY.
Ocasio-Cortez admitted that Reade’s allegation isn’t “clear-cut,” but noted that her account has been corroborated by several independent sources.
She added, however, that others “have raised questions about other aspects of her accounts,” Ocasio-Cortez said during an interview with NPR on Thursday.
“Frankly, this is a messy moment, and I think we need to acknowledge that,” she said.
Asked what she’d like to see happen moving forward, Ocasio-Cortez noted that Reade has not yet called on Biden to abandon his bid for the White House.
“While a lot of folks, again, are trying to jump to the political implications, she has never explicitly said, ‘Don’t vote for Joe Biden,'” she explained. “She hasn’t explicitly said anything in terms of a political remedy that she wants. If anything, it sounds like she simply wants to be heard.”
Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont for president back in October, went on to say that she plans to vote for Biden this November anyway, though she has thus far declined to endorse him.
She added that she won’t feel comfortable endorsing Biden until she and Biden agree on “a vision … not just for winning [in November], but for getting our country to a better place.”
The self-described Democratic socialist, Ocasio-Cortez defended Reade last month, arguing that it is “legitimate” for the Democratic Party to “talk about” her allegations.
“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,” she said during an online forum in April.