The Trump presidential campaign released a new anti-Biden ad Friday that beats the presumptive Democrat nominee with the biggest club available: the allegation from former Biden staffer Tara Reade that Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993.
The ad features Hillary Clinton and Biden’s women supporters explaining why, when a woman alleges a sexual assault, she must be believed. Biden said the same thing … until Tara Reade.
Of course, the women were speaking of Christine Blasey Ford, who leveled a false allegation of sexual assault against U.S. Supreme Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings in 2018.
Nonetheless, the ad serves its purpose in delivering this message: Democrats, particularly women, should hold Joe Biden to the same standard to which they held Kavanaugh: Believe Tara Reade.
The Ad
The ad (see below) opens with footage of Hillary Clinton’s split-screen endorsement, and Biden’s thanking the loser in 2016’s presidential election for joining him.
“I am thrilled to be part of your campaign, to not only endorse you, but to help highlight a lot of the issues that are at stake,” Clinton says.
With Biden on the left, the ad shifts to Judy Woodruff of PBS Newshour and her opening into the taxpayer-subsidzed network’s coverage of Reade’s allegation, after which viewers see Reade’s photo and hear this excerpt from her interview with leftist podcaster Katie Halper: “His hands were on me and underneath my clothes.”
Then the steady beating of Biden and his backers begins, first with this quote from Clinton:
“You have a right to be believed. We’re with you.”
After that, the video rolls from one Democrat to another — and Biden — all saying the same thing: Believe women when they allege sexual assault.
“Do we value women?” asks Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. “Do we believe women?”
“Women should be believed,” Biden says.
“We believe women,” New Jersey Senator Cory Booker agreed.
“I’m very disappointed that there are those who continue to not believe women who come forward,” says Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii. “It is not easy. They should be believed.”
Next comes one of Kavanaugh’s most voluble opponents, Senator Kamala Harris: “She is putting herself out there, knowing that they’re gonna try and excoriate her. And she has the courage to come forward? She has nothing to gain. What does she have to gain?”
“I stand with survivors,” says Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.
Then viewers hear from Biden again: “The woman should be given the benefit of the doubt.”
Happily, Trump’s ad creators did not leave out The View’s obnoxious loudmouth, Joy Behar: “These white men, old, by the way, are not protecting women.”
Finally, Clinton explains what Biden will do as president: “Show the kind of compassion and caring that we need from our president, and which Joe Biden has been exemplifying throughout his entire life.”
During that comment, video on the left goes to Biden’s endless hug of Clinton in 2016, then to his nuzzling Senator Chris Coons’ daughter, Maggie, during the senator’s swearing-in ceremony in 2015. She is obviously uncomfortable and pulls away when he tries to kiss her.
“Look, I want to thank everybody, I want to thank Hillary for joining us in this conversation today.”
The ad closes with Biden and Clinton sitting in silence: “Bonus segment,” the ad reads. “Joe and Hillary explain all their plans to help women.”
Media Disbelieve Reade, Too
Top Democrat politicians, particularly women, aren’t Biden’s only defenders. The leftist media has protected him as well, and not a single reporter who had the chance asked Biden about Reade’s allegations did so until yesterday, when Mika Brzezinski grilled him on Morning Joe.
As Reade told BuzzFeed, “I used to think that a Republican talking point was to call the mainstream media biased. So I used to think, ‘Oh, that’s just a talking point for them. I don’t believe it.’ But now I’m living it [in] real time, and I see it — like, I see it for what it is. Because I am a Democrat, or I was. But now I’m not anything, really. I’m politically homeless.”
Of course, media bias is just one problem for Reade. The second, perhaps more important, one is the double standard in assessing her corroborated allegations versus Ford’s uncorroborated, evidence-free claims, as Trump’s campaign observed when it released the ad:
“We do not know what, if anything, was done to Tara Reade, but there cannot be one set of rules for Joe Biden and another set for everyone else.”
Photo: screen-grab from Trump campaign ad
R. Cort Kirkwood is a longtime contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
