The former vice president made his statement in response to a voter who asked him on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show, “The Last Word,” whether he would “commit to not pulling a Gerald Ford in giving Donald Trump a pardon under the pretense of healing the nation.”
Biden, who served in the Senate 36 years before two terms as vice president, said he does not recall Reade at all.
In 2019, Reade was among several women who accused Biden of touching them in ways that made them uncomfortable, but none of those accounts at the time including accusations of assault.
Many Republicans have tried to amplify Reade’s story and hammered Biden and other Democrats as hypocrites because of their use of the mantra “Believe Women” during the #MeToo era, including when Christine Blasey Ford accused now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teens.
During the final segments of the MSNBC show Thursday night, Biden appeared split-screen alongside Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams, one of the women he’s believed to be considering for the vice presidency.
