Former Senate aide Tara Reade said that Joe Biden’s alleged sexual assault traumatized her so much that she sometimes wakes up yelling ‘stop’ after having bad dreams about what she claims happened in 1993.
In a newly-released interview with former Fox News and NBC News host Megyn Kelly, Reade, 56, said that the alleged attack ‘shattered’ her.
Reade has alleged that when she was 29, the then 50-year-old Biden – who she worked for as a staff assistant at the time – sexually harassed and assaulted her. Biden and his spokespeople have denied the claims.
Tara Reade (pictured) spoke of how ‘shattering’ her alleged sexual abuse by Joe Biden was in a newly-released interview with former Fox News host Megyn Kelly
Reade (left) told Kelly (right) about how she suffers from bad dreams about the alleged incident with Biden and that she wakes up yelling ‘stop’
‘I wanted to say “stop,” and I thought it,’ Reade told Kelly in the interview which was released in full on Friday.
‘I don’t know if I said it,’ Reade said, ‘But sometimes, when I’ve had a couple bad dreams or a few bad dreams about it, I wake up yelling that and I wake up yelling “stop.”‘
She told Kelly that one incident took place in the hallway of a Capitol Hill building in Spring 1993, following previous sexual harassment incidents.
Reade said that she had been told to go and give Biden, now 77, a gym bag and that was when he allegedly kissed and then assaulted her.
‘He said I want to f*** you,’ Reade said. ‘And he said it low. And I was pushing away and I remember my knee hurting because our knees, because he had opened my legs with his knee and our kneecaps clashed, so I felt this sharp pain.’
Reade (pictured April 4) told Kelly she wants Biden to withdraw from his presidential bid
Reade (in undated pictures) said that Biden had kissed her and assaulted her in the hallway of a Capitol Hill building in 1993 when she was 29 and a Biden staff assistant
Biden has denied Reade’s claims, saying that the assault ‘unequivocally’ did not happen
Reade added that ‘His fingers were inside of my private area, my vagina.’
She said that afterwards, Biden told her she ‘was nothing’ before walking away.
‘I think that’s the hardest thing,’ she told Kelly. ‘Those words stayed with me my whole life.’
‘I remember small things,’ Reade continued. ‘I remember trying to put my shoe back on because I came out of my shoe and I remember my knee hurting and I remember the smell.’
During the interview, Reade said that she wanted Biden to end his presidential run and face the music.
‘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, that’s how I feel emotionally.
She previously wrote on social media that Americans should support Bernie Sanders, Biden’s former Democratic primary rival.
She then told Kelly that an apology now wouldn’t be sufficient. ‘I think it’s a little late,’ Reade said.
Reade revealed to Kelly that she had taken her complaint to both Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris’ presidential campaigns when they were still active.
‘I tried to reach out to them,’ Reade said. ‘I didn’t get a response.’
She said she chose Harris because as a Californian, the ex-2020 candidate is her senator.
Reade also told Kelly that she would testify under oath and be cross examined, but she’d only take a polygraph test if the former vice president took one first.
‘I’m not a criminal,’ Reade said. ‘Joe Biden should take the polygraph. What kind of precedent does that set for survivors of violence? Does that mean we’re presumed guilty? And we all have to take polygraphs.’
‘So I will take one if Joe Biden takes one, but I am not a criminal,’ Reade added.
Reade’s interview with Kelly comes a week after Biden ‘unequivocally’ denied the allegations during an on-air Morning Joe interview.
‘I’m saying it unequivocally: It never, never happened. And it didn’t. It never happened,’ Biden said.
After clips from Kelly’s interview with Reade began being released Thursday, Biden’s spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield said, according to People: ‘Women must receive the benefit of the doubt. They must be able to come forward and share their stories without fear of retribution or harm — and we all have a responsibility to ensure that. At the same time, we can never sacrifice the truth. And the truth is that these allegations are false and that the material that has been presented to back them up, under scrutiny, keeps proving their falsity.’