Fox News’ correspondent-at-large Geraldo Rivera joined in the chorus of people analyzing Joe Biden’s denial of sexual assault claims Friday, saying the former vice president “looked like a deer caught in the headlights.”
After Biden appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to flatly deny assaulting Tara Reade 27 years ago while she was a Senate staffer, Rivera said, “I certainly don’t think case is closed,” he said. “I think that the former vice president looked like a deer caught in the headlights, to me.”
In a lengthy statement released just ahead of the MSNBC interview, Biden called on the National Archives to release any personnel records related to a complaint that Reade has said she filed in 1993 about an incident in which, she has said, Biden pushed her against a wall, reached under her skirt and penetrated her with his finger — which he flatly denied.
“If that document exists, it would be stored at the National Archives,” he told Brzezinski, adding that he had “never asked anyone to sign an NDA.”
Biden rejected a suggestion that he call for a search of Reade’s name in the sealed documents from his congressional and vice presidential career that are stored at the University of Delaware, insisting that no personnel records are housed there.
“The whole issue of the records that he has given to the University of Delaware and now is preventing access from outsiders to those records, I think, Brian, that’s the headline of the ‘Morning Joe’ interview with the candidate right now,” he said, adding that the presumptive Democratic nominee seemed “uncomfortable.”
He suggested the issue is a partisan one and that Democrats are “resistant” to the idea of treating accusations against Biden the same as they did accusations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed by Republican President Donald Trump.
Before the interview with Biden, MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski defended the media for not applying a “Kavanaugh standard” to Biden, saying, “The media should not apply a ‘Kavanaugh standard’ to any public figure. The blanket and absolute standard of simply believing all women is a notion we dismissed here on the show early on.”