Patterico's Pontifications

5/9/2020

Megyn Kelly Interviews Tara Reade: “I’m Not Here to Influence a National Election”

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 11:18 am



You can watch it here.

It’s a pretty good interview, but it is marred by Kelly’s failure to ask Reade why she wrote the words “this is not a story about sexual misconduct” for publication, just last year.

You definitely get the sense that she seems far more angry that Biden told her “you’re nothing to me” than by the alleged fact that he put his fingers in her vagina without her consent. (There are also details in the interview about how this was so easy for him to allegedly do; i.e., they get graphic and specific about what she was wearing and what she was not wearing.)

There’s a lot here to talk about, but I want to focus on her claim, which she contradicts elsewhere in the interview, that she is “not here to influence a national election.” The lady doth protest too much, methinks:

KELLY: A lot of Democrats are mad. They’re mad at you for, they see it as an attempt to tar their guy — the one guy who could bring down a man they loathe — and they kinda just wish you would go away. To those people, what do you say?

READE: I say again: you don’t have to discredit me or not believe me to vote for Joe Biden. Voting is a very personal thing, and I’m not here to influence a national election, and I don’t want to be. I do not want to help Donald Trump win. I do not want to help Joe Biden win, obviously. He’s the person that hurt me.

It’s a claim made about 38 minutes into the interview, and it’s bullshit. And we know it’s bullshit because of the things she had already admitted elsewhere in the interview. Like this:

KELLY: Was this at all politically motivated? Because that’s what people think, you know. They think you were a Marianne Williamson supporter, you’re a Bernie supporter.

READE: Mm-hmm.

KELLY: This is about politics.

READE: No, actually, it’s not. It, well, I think everything’s political. Like, maybe I’ll take that back. Everything’s political, right? But this is deeper than that. This is about, um, watching the person that assaulted me be elevated to the highest office in the land. He’s running on a platform of character, and I just, I found that gross. I know what he’s like. I experienced what he is like. And I wanted people to know.

KELLY: But if you brought it to, for example, the Elizabeth Warren campaign, right, to try to get them to do something with it. Um, and the Kamala Harris campaign.

READE: I did. Mm-hmm.

KELLY: Isn’t that inherently political? I mean, doesn’t that suggest, in fact, this is all political?

READE: I tried to reach out to them, yes, I did. I tried to reach out to them. Well, Kamala Harris is my representative [sic], so I tried to reach out to her in particular, um, for help. Like I wanted to get a safe place to tell what happened. And I didn’t get a response. So I kept again trying to get it out there. I think that many things can be true at once, is what, you know, we all know, right? He is presented as a champion of women’s rights. And yet I know personally, and I know seven other women that did not experience him that way.

KELLY: One of the reasons people have chosen to dismiss you, some people have chosen to dismiss your allegation, is because there was a March 3d tweet that I want to ask you about.

READE: OK.

KELLY: So, the Intercept’s Ryan Grim —

READE: Mm-hmm.

KELLY: — tweeted out, quote: “A head-to-head Biden v Sanders contest will force voters to take a close look at Biden again. That went very badly for him last time.” And you responded at 10:33 p.m. on March 3, 2020: “Yup. Timing… wait for it….tic toc.”

It sounds political and it sounds like you were excited to drop this bomb.

READE: That was in response to me getting — finally, I thought — an attorney from, from Time’s Up to finally bring something forward and bring my story forward in a safe way. So that’s why I wrote it.

KELLY: “Tic toc” was a reference to …

READE: Time’s Up.

KELLY: Time’s Up.

READE: Yeah.

KELLY: Were you excited? Because it sounds anticipatory; you’re building the anticipation and the suspense. People have used that as a reason to say, “She’s not credible.”

READE: Mm-hmm. I think that they’ll use anything to say that I’m not credible [laughing]. So I won’t address it in that way. What I will say is that I was very, very vocal on Twitter about trying to get the story forward.

Time’s Up is a legal defense fund that declined Reade’s application to get funds and legal representation due to the political nature of her claim.

And what does Tara “I’m not here to influence a national election” Reade want? She wants Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race:

KELLY: If he’s watching this, what do you want to say to him?

READE: I want to say: “You and I were there, Joe Biden. Please step forward and be held accountable. And if you feel that you can address this in a real way, then you know and I know that you should step down. You’re not … you’re not … you should not be running on character for the President of the United States.”

KELLY: You want him to withdraw.

READE: I wish he would. But he won’t, but, I wish he would. That’s how I feel emotionally.

KELLY: Do you want an apology?

READE: I think it’s a little late. That was, should have happened in 1993.

So when Reade says: “I’m not here to influence a national election” … well, the viewer can hardly be blamed if his or her reaction is similar to that of Megyn Kelly, who instantly cocks her head as if to say: “Seriously?” Watch the four-second clip:

LOL.

58 Responses to “Megyn Kelly Interviews Tara Reade: “I’m Not Here to Influence a National Election””

  1. The transcripts in this post were done by me, and I don’t see them available elsewhere yet. You’re welcome.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  2. I don’t like her, I don’t believe her, I think she is definitely trying to derail Biden’s candidacy, and only the devil knows her motives.

    nk (1d9030)

  3. Thank you. You’re a mench.

    Ragspierre (d9bec9)

  4. Nk, she can rotate on the spit next to Juanita Broaddrick’s.

    urbanleftbehind (22e614)

  5. “I don’t like her, I don’t believe her, I think she is definitely trying to derail Biden’s candidacy, and only the devil knows her motives.”

    Maybe true. I’ve never felt that decades-later accusations by people who have been grownups for decades already can be used to derail someone in these circumstances, or those of Brett Kavanaugh, or Clarence Thomas for that matter. Having said that, this is great fun because of the opportunity to see people like Diane Feinstein saying things like “why was she quiet for so long?” – all the deflections are statements made about Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Ford with only the names changed. The people squirming deserve to sit in the squirm seats for quite awhile. Even without Reade, there are so many creepy photos of touchy Joe with females that a montage would fill a big screen TV.

    Al Kuhseltsur (cbb623)

  6. 5… yes, popcorn all around!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  7. “I’m not here to influence a national election” is not a believable comment. She’s a Bernie Sis, and all this stayed under wraps until not long after Bernie conceded.

    Paul Montagu (b3f51b)

  8. Well that was a boatload of inconsistencies and excuses for what were clearly incriminating statements she had made earlier. It’s like she read a story about what sexual harassment looked like and then made up her own fanfic version. I believe her less after watching the interview than I did before. She did not come bare legged to work in 1993, I’m sorry, but she didn’t. She should not still be in “massive” debt for law school 20 yrs ago (yes, private law school is expensive, but I have a friend who graduated out of Santa Clara Law 4 yrs later and SU law was less expensive). Almost everyone she ever told is too afraid to come out and do an interview to support her story? Every single one of the many people she is sure Biden also assaulted are too afraid? Over a 40 yr career? She has so many personal beefs that of course bunches of people from her past are speaking out against her (seriously, why would you collect so many beefs in your personal life)? All her social media was hacked? Is she going to come out in 5 yrs and claim this was all a social experiment?

    Even the believable parts only make sense as “someone in Biden’s office harassed her” rather than “Biden harassed her”.

    Nic (896fdf)

  9. Nic:

    Yes, after watching that interview I have moved from skepticism to outright disbelief. You can’t know for sure, but I think she’s making it up, based on what I have seen.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  10. If she made this story up, when did she make it up? Between 1993 and 1996?

    Leviticus (6159e1)

  11. Many things can be true at once. For example, “allegation is true,” and “timing is political.” People can decide to give more weight to one thing that another, but it should be acknowledged that many things can be true at once.

    Leviticus (6159e1)

  12. Her accusation certainly is credible. Can we really afford to have a POTUS who sexually harrasses women?

    rcocean (846d30)

  13. This credible accusation of attempted rape by Biden, certainly gives a new slant to Biden’s attacks on Kavanaugh and support for the much less credible C. Blowsey Ford.

    rcocean (846d30)

  14. Bill maher the well known sexist says he doesn’t care what groper joe biden did to tara reade I am voting for groper joe anyway! More and more democrats and never trumper republicans are saying this too. Rose mcgowen answered maher in a tweet on maher’s show politically in-correct in the late 1990’s in a commercial break sexually harassed her making lewd comments about the size of his genitals and what he would like to do to her with it. Me too bill strikes again.

    asset (097921)

  15. Can we really afford to have a POTUS who sexually harrasses women?

    We’ve already afforded to elect Clinton and Trump. Your voting for Trump is an endorsement of that piggish behavior.

    Paul Montagu (c18f4a)

  16. The problem is people like rcocean who couldn’t give a sh*t about truth or falsity so much as the success or failure of their chose idol.

    Leviticus (6159e1)

  17. @10 Originally, yes. It has felt to me vaguely like at least an exaggeration. Maybe a little attention seeking from people she was close to, that kind of thing, the extreme end not really intended to get out beyond her immediate group in the beginning. A little raunchy, a little over the top, a little penthouse letter but meant to shock.

    Nic (896fdf)

  18. Also, I’m a little worried about rcocean. He doesn’t seem know what attempted rape is.

    Nic (896fdf)

  19. Sounds like a very well-grounded and rationally defensible opinion there, Nic.

    Leviticus (6159e1)

  20. Seeing as people just make up contemporaneous sexual harassment allegations against sitting US Senators all the time, to dish with their gal-pals. Women, amirite?

    Leviticus (6159e1)

  21. @20 People tell over the top stories to their friends all the time. “I caught a fish so big” “And I scored the winning touchdown on a broken leg” “My boss is so terrible that.” “But you haven’t heard the worst part.” “I got fired because (totally unreasonable reason to be fired in which they were an angel)” It’s not a girl thing, it’s a person thing.

    Nic (896fdf)

  22. Her reply to Ryan Grim’s tweet belies her denial that she’s trying to influence the election. That doesn’t refute her accusation about Biden, but one revealed lie in a narrative does tend to call the veracity of the rest into question.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  23. Sugguest you look up legal definition of “rape” aka Sexual assault. People’s personal definitions are irrelevant.

    rcocean (846d30)

  24. but I want to focus on her claim, which she contradicts elsewhere in the interview, that she is “not here to influence a national election.”

    Well, OK, but you could also take it as a throat-clearing platitude, and focus on the rest of it.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  25. Speaking to reporters Monday at an event at the residence of the U.S. ambassador to Ireland, Biden again expressed regret for how Hill was treated and insisted he’d believed her allegations against Thomas from the very start.

    “I thought she was telling the truth at the beginning,” Biden said, according to the Post. “I really did.”

    Biden added that any woman’s public allegation of sexual assault should generally be presumed to be true.

    “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time,” Biden said. “But nobody fails to understand that this is like jumping into a cauldron.”

    rcocean (846d30)

  26. Or, maybe this is just the tip of the iceberg. People downplayed the John Edwards rumors until they exploded.

    If not, if this is just a plausible lie based on Biden’s history of groping, it still may sink his nomination. The party apparatus would much rather pick a candidate itself.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  27. Hey! Groper joe biden sexually assaulted less women then trump right. Maybe he didn’t grope less. Groper joe has appointed former senator chris dodd as is investigator who carla caviglio accused dodd of raping her in 1985. Inspector cluseau was to busy.

    asset (097921)

  28. If she made this story up, when did she make it up? Between 1993 and 1996?

    I suspect it was within the last year.

    You’re asking: what about the corroborating witnesses?

    Patterico (115b1f)

  29. Seeing as people just make up contemporaneous sexual harassment allegations against sitting US Senators all the time, to dish with their gal-pals. Women, amirite?

    My argument is that corroborating witnesses who lie (as it appears they have, in the past) are not necessarily to be trusted. The inevitable response is that they were protecting her and not going further than she wanted to, and that’s not impossible. But if they’re willing to mislead reporters at her behest, why assume we know precisely the limits of their willingness to mislead?

    Patterico (115b1f)

  30. What about the ex-husband’s court filing?

    Leviticus (69df94)

  31. Suggest you look up legal definition of “rape” aka Sexual assault. People’s personal definitions are irrelevant.

    Yes, if Biden did what was alleged, it would fit the rape definition.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  32. Prior consistent statements are not corroboration. (Except in a lawsuit for defamation brought by Biden against Reade.) They are rehearsal.

    nk (1d9030)

  33. @23 Depending on what the law was at the time, and depending on whether or not you believe Reade, either it was rape because he penetrated her at all or it was sexual assault rather than rape because his penetration wouldn’t have otherwise fit the definition (laws differ by state, FBI defined it by PIV/A up until 2012). It wasn’t attempted because either he succeeded in his penetration and therefore it was an action he succeeded in rather than an attempt, or it wasn’t because he didn’t try to force the action that would have fit the definition.

    Nic (896fdf)

  34. They undermine any impeachment narrative rooted in “decades of silence.”

    Leviticus (6159e1)

  35. I’m curious as to whether those who express skepticism about Ms. Reade’s allegations believe that Biden sexually harassed Ms. Reade, and even sexually touched Ms. Reade, but did not sexually penetrate Ms. Reade.

    Leviticus (6159e1)

  36. I don’t believe anything she says about Biden personally as the actor, and strongly suspect that “sexual harassment by Biden’s office” as she alleged up to the new re-write of the script was merely her own personal demons.

    nk (1d9030)

  37. 10. Leviticus (6159e1) — 5/9/2020 @ 1:41 pm

    If she made this story up, when did she make it up? Between 1993 and 1996?

    She didn’t make up this story by 1996. And at that time, it might have been kind of vague, not only as to who, but as to what.

    I think she made up this story in 2019, or, possibly, not before January 1, 2020. Maybe not until sometime in March. And she had help.

    Her husband only brought it up in 1996, as to a possible reason she was lying about him

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/us/politics/tara-reade-joe-biden.html

    The existence of the document was first reported by The San Luis Obispo Tribune on Thursday. The New York Times subsequently obtained a copy of the court file from San Luis Obispo Superior Court.

    In the document, Mr. Dronen said he believed the events disturbed Ms. Reade and led to her departure in 1993 from Mr. Biden’s office when he served in the Senate.

    “It was obvious that this event had a very traumatic effect,” he said, according to the court document, arguing that it led her to make exaggerated claims against him, “and that she is still sensitive and effected by it today.”

    In a filing denying many of the claims Ms. Reade made against him, Mr. Dronen cataloged her claims of having been victimized, first by her separated parents and up to her Senate experience — an account he said that she had first told him when they worked in Washington.

    “Petitioner told me that she eventually struck a deal with the chief of staff of the Senator’s office and left her position,” Mr. Dronen said, according to the document. “I was sympathetic to her needs when she asked me for help, and assisted her financially, and allowed her to stay at my apartment with my roommate while she looked for work.”

    Sammy Finkelman (375edc)

  38. Yup. Her whole life, everybody has given her a raw deal.

    nk (1d9030)

  39. Don’t believe her or disbelieve her, let her just be treated the same as Blasey-Ford and everyone should agree that’s copacetic.

    Just don’t treat Joe as he wants college students to be treated by Title IX, this is the United States.
    _

    harkin (8f4a6f)

  40. Just don’t treat Joe as he wants college students to be treated by Title IX, this is the United States.

    Why do you continue to misrepresent Title IX hearings as criminal proceedings when they are nothing of the sort?

    Dave (1bb933)

  41. Why do you continue to misrepresent Title IX hearings as criminal proceedings when they are nothing of the sort?

    Why are you suggesting that your rights at a public university can be so casually abrogated just to appeal to the obnoxious crybully crowd?

    JVW (54fd0b)

  42. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

    nk (1d9030)

  43. Let me reword that because my construction is kind of clunky: Why are you suggesting that a public university can so casually abrogate your Constitutional rights just to win the favor of the obnoxious crybully crowd?

    JVW (54fd0b)

  44. Actually, you’re safer at a public university, a government entity, where you’re protected by the Fourteenth Amendment and the incorporated Bill of Rights, then you are at a private university which takes federal money (even by way of student loans).

    nk (1d9030)

  45. Actually, you’re safer at a public university, a government entity, where you’re protected by the Fourteenth Amendment and the incorporated Bill of Rights, then you are at a private university which takes federal money (even by way of student loans).

    Of course you are. And that’s why it was all the more obnoxious when a UCLA or UTexas or Ohio State or University of Delaware adopted and implemented the awful Obama Administration Title IX reforms.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  46. “I don’t believe anything she says about Biden personally as the actor, and strongly suspect that “sexual harassment by Biden’s office” as she alleged up to the new re-write of the script was merely her own personal demons.”

    Then again, we have multiple video compilations of Biden doing that sort of thing in public to any woman of any age with a pulse. So it’s really not far-fetched at all, and such straining by you and Pat to make this into a purely personal issue when it’s obviously been political from the beginning are rather…telling, to say the least.

    “You definitely get the sense that she seems far more angry that Biden told her “you’re nothing to me” than by the alleged fact that he put his fingers in her vagina without her consent.”

    Verbal abuse is still abuse, at least according to most current legal definitions. Strange that you would ignore victim trauma that results in fines and imprisonment for Joe Sixpack when Joe Biden does it. Guess that’s one of those ‘political’ things.

    Donut Vehicle (eac2c2)

  47. Verbal abuse is still abuse, at least according to most current legal definitions. S

    These are the same guys who freaked out at how Kavanaugh was treated. Now look at their analysis.

    Dustin (e5f6c3)

  48. @35 At the beginning I thought it was certainly a strong possibility that he had touched her on the shoulder and neck as in her original story and as consistent with other reports. At this point, though, no. I think something happened in the office (it was probably the serve drinks because of her legs thing, which she has made as large a part of the narrative as the alleged assault, and she still seems really salty about), which fits her mother’s telephone call and her own quote that Biden should’ve kept closer watch on his people.

    Nic (896fdf)

  49. Good analysis, Nic. We have no idea, but that makes a lot of sense to me.

    Hey y’all remember that time Trump bragged he did something Trump fans now call “sexual assault”?

    Can we really afford to have a POTUS who sexually harrasses women?

    rcocean (846d30) — 5/9/2020 @ 1:47 pm

    Look at the damage three years of Trump did. Destroyed an inherited economic boom. Killed many thousands. Took the GOP to the lowest ethical level any political entity has had in American history. White supremacists with rifles screeching at legislators. It all stems from what Trump is as a man, so no, we really cannot afford it.

    I agree with rcocean that voting on the personal character of presidential candidates is wise.

    Dustin (e5f6c3)

  50. I think the serving drinks thing, in some form, is the accusation most likely to be true because she wouldn’t have the imagination to invent it, but I don’t think it necessarily disturbed her so much – she just wanted something to complain about that the people she was (informally) complaining to knew to be true. And now she calls attention to it because she made a big deal out of it before.

    And what really bothered her about the job was something she could not complain about. It was something people would argue it’s not supposed to bother you, or that that was part of the job.

    Sammy Finkelman (375edc)

  51. Can we really afford to have a POTUS who sexually harrasses women?

    Can we really afford another four years of a POTUS who believes that anything he does cannot possibly be wrong? Who approaches every issue from the standpoint of What’s in it for me? Who is mentally incapable if distinguishing fact from self-serving fable?

    Radegunda (c9f012)

  52. Apart from whether Reade is credible (and I’m leaning toward not), it’s been amusing to see the whole “God uses sinful men” crowd — the people who scoffed at the childish naivety of those who thought the president should be a decent human being — now purporting to be scandalized by a man who puts his hands on women’s shoulders.

    Radegunda (c9f012)

  53. Can we really afford to have a POTUS who sexually harrasses women?

    I thought this was a joke…

    Dana (0feb77)

  54. It must be a joke. I mean, I realize irony is dead, but it’s not that dead.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  55. It must be a joke. I mean, I realize irony is dead, but it’s not that dead.

    Problem is: a lot of earnest Trump-defense raises the “you can’t be serious?” response in the rational mind. And Trumpists don’t hesitate to feign moral disapproval if others do exactly the things they excuse when it’s Trump.

    It’s very common, e.g., to see Trump defenders acting outraged that someone is (allegedly) “lying about Trump.” And the rational person thinks: anyone who admires Donald Trump can’t seriously be bothered by dishonesty. But their posture of outrage is quite serious.

    So yes, the Trump era has totally obliterated irony.

    Radegunda (c9f012)

  56. “These are the same guys who freaked out at how Kavanaugh was treated. Now look at their analysis.”

    Kavanaugh wasn’t instrumental in creating the current legal environment, and does not deserve
    the harshest criticisms and the default dismissal.

    Those who interfere with Biden’s accusers with spurious notions of ‘fair play’ or ‘precedent’ or ‘believability’ are interfering with karma, with basic retribution, with Divine Justice. There is no forgiveness for the unrepentant, no inheritance on offer for those who failed to reject Title IX and all the lives it ruined.

    “Look at the damage three years of Trump did. Destroyed an inherited economic boom”

    Stopped reading right there. Boom for whom?

    Actually, you’re safer at a public university, a government entity, where you’re protected by the Fourteenth Amendment and the incorporated Bill of Rights, then you are at a private university which takes federal money”

    And public universities are much higher risk factors for the accusations to happen in the first place, for the teachers, faculty, administration, and their Marxist student Hall Monitor brigade to act as official advocates and unofficial enforcers for the accuser, and for the process to drag out much longer as a result, though you might get lucky if you spend all the money you saved going to a public uni defending yourself and your reputation. If everything goes well, you may just get to spend your entire educational years in litigation instead of education! Tell me more about how these ‘protections’ in any way validate Title IX, ACKSHUALLY man!

    Donut Vehicle (298fb5)

  57. The mind which publicly describes itself as ‘rational’

    I’ve never claimed to be any kind of genius — far from it — but if I can see the contradictions and inconsistencies in the stances and arguments of other people, then I can confidently claim some measure of rationality.

    People who act outraged about “lying” and dishonesty at the same time as they’re defending Donald Trump at every turn are either irrational or hypocritical.

    Radegunda (c9f012)

  58. BTW, it isn’t a very “public” declaration when I’m hiding behind a screen name, on a smallish blog.

    Radegunda (c9f012)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0996 secs.