Tara Reade, the woman who’s accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, sat down with Megyn Kelly for her first major on-camera interview and said she wished Biden would drop out of the presidential race.
She also blasted Biden’s campaign for not making her feel ‘safe’ to speak out about an alleged assault that occurred when she worked for Biden as a U.S. senator in 1993.
‘I want to say you and I were there, Joe Biden, please step forward and be held accountable, you should not be running on character for president of the United States,’ Reade told Kelly, who had asked what her message was for Biden.
Kelly followed up by asking Reade if she wanted Biden to withdraw from the presidential contest.
‘I wish he would,’ Reade answered. ‘But he won’t, but I wish he would,’ Reade said.
She explained that’s how she feels ’emotionally’ and also told Kelly that an apology now wouldn’t be sufficient.
‘I think it’s a little late,’ Reade said.
Megyn Kelly (right) teased an interview with Joe Biden’s sexual assault accuser Tara Reade (left) on Thursday, which included these images of the two women
Megyn Kelly, who currently works for herself and has been producing her own content and posting it on YouTube, said the interview was a ‘riveting exchange,’ though didn’t give details on when she would be releasing footage
Joe Biden denied Reade’s accusations in his own sit-down interview, last Friday with ‘Morning Joe’
Tara Reade, who said she was sexually assaulted by the presumptive Democratic nominee as a Senate staffer in 1993, told The New York Times that major broadcast networks hadn’t asked her to do a televised interview
Kelly, formerly of Fox News Channel and NBC News, teased the interview in a Thursday afternoon tweet.
‘Her story & some tough Q’s in a riveting exchange,’ Kelly wrote. ‘A ton of news coming … ,’ she said and included a photo of both she and Reade.
Since leaving NBC News in January 2019, Kelly has worked for herself, posting interviews to her YouTube channel.
Last last month, Reade told The New York Times’ media critic Ben Smith that no major networks had offered to put her on TV.
‘They’re just doing stories. No anchors, no nothing like that,’ she said.
At the time, Smith reported, Reade was in talks with Fox News Channel about doing an on-camera interview, with ‘Fox News Sunday’ with Chris Wallace looking to be the venue.
Fox News Channel told The Atlantic that the interview reported by The Times was ‘never confirmed.’
Reade told The Times that she backed out due to getting death threats.
Reade previously did an on-camera interview with Hill.TV, but when discussing media coverage with The Times, she was referencing major network television, saying she had hoped for a sit-down with Gayle King, the host of ‘CBS This Morning.’
Reade has accused Biden of sticking his hand down her skirt and digitally penatrating her in a Congressional hallway when she worked for him as an aide in 1993.
She first told her story to journalist Katie Halper for her ‘Katie Halper Show’ podcast on March 25.
Biden denied the allegations on-camera last Friday on ‘Morning Joe,’ which was his first television appearance pushing back on Reade’s story.
Kelly was among the women at Fox News Channel who accused the late Fox News Channel CEO Roger Ailes of sexual harassment.
Since leaving NBC News, Kelly’s video report on how real life Fox News employees responded to the movie ‘Bombshell,’ a film where she’s portrayed by Charlize Theron, was her most widely viewed piece of content, receiving 1.5 million hits on YouTube.