Say It Ain’t Joe

Joe Biden and his campaign news

Read Time: 6 minutes

• Andrea Mitchell tells Lester Holt that she spoke with the head of Barack Obama’s 2008 VP vetting team and they found absolutely no evidence of misconduct — sexual or otherwise in relation to Joe Biden.

• Sen. Lindsey Graham defended Joe Biden on Fox: “I’ve known Joe Biden for 20 years. I’ve traveled the world with him. I’ve never seen him do anything untoward toward a woman, I’ve never heard anything about him being inappropriate.”

• Democratic strategist David Axelrod, a former top aide for President Obama’s two White House campaigns, says that Obama’s team didn’t find claims of sexual misconduct when vetting former Vice President Joe Biden.

Axelrod said that the vetting process “certainly would have turned up any formal complaints filed against Biden during his 36-year career in the Senate. It did not.”

“Had any credible issue been raised, you can be sure Biden would not have been the nominee,” Axelrod said. “Obama would not have tolerated it, even if he and Biden were close then, which they were not.”

•  The lawyer who oversaw the vetting of Joe Biden for Obama, Patti Solis Doyle, Tweeted: “I ran VP nominee operations for Obama campaign in 08. When Biden was selected I served as his Chief of Staff. NO sexual assault or harassment allegation ever came up against him. It was an exhaustive vet”

• Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden accused President Trump of “all-out assault on the media” during World Freedom Press Freedom Day.

The former vice president criticized Trump’s treatment of the press in a campaign statement, saying his rhetoric threatens the freedom of the press as his “repeated efforts to demonize the media put us on such a dangerous path.”

“While many presidents have been unhappy with their media coverage, only Donald Trump has attacked the independence of journalists and launched an all-out assault on the media,” Biden’s statement said. 

“He bullies and berates individual members of the press, rather than take responsibility for his failures of leadership,” he continued. “His efforts to undermine public confidence in the integrity of fact-based reporting violate our core American values and threaten our very system of government.”

• Joe Biden says his vice presidential selection committee is vetting “more than a dozen women” as potential running mates. Biden, who has previously pledged to name a woman as vice president, told Al Sharpton on MSNBC’s “Politics Nation” that he is aware of the desire in some quarters for him to select a black woman.

“I really do understand that, Al, for real. And that’s why I assure you that of the more than a dozen women that they’re taking an initial look at, there are significantly more than one black woman that’s going to be considered by this group, first and foremost, number one,” Biden said. Contenders reported to be on Biden’s shortlist include Sen. Kamala Harris and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.

• A few Senate Democrats are saying there needs to be more investigation of former aide Tara Reade’s accusation that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in the Senate 27 years ago, a charge that Biden has vehemently denied.

• Former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign on Monday rolled out its plan to empower black Americans, focusing on six major policy areas.

Biden plans to advance the “economic mobility” of the African American community, as well as put an end to the racial wealth and income gaps in the U.S. The plan calls for expanding African Americans’ access to credit and capital, as well as improving and expanding a number of Small Business Administration programs.

The plan will also aim to increase access to high-quality education by ending the funding gap between majority white and majority nonwhite school districts by tripling Title I funding.

• A new committee is pushing for former first lady Michelle Obama to join the ticket of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as his vice president. 

The committee called “Draft Michelle Obama” touted Obama as the best choice both to help the former vice president defeat President Trump in November as well as the best to help Biden lead the country if he wins.

• Former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign launched a new digital series featuring the presumptive Democratic nominee’s response to letters received from supporters. 

The series, called “Sincerely, Joe Biden,” will also include supporters’ letters to the former vice president.

• Former Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that if he’s elected president, he will reverse a rule issued by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos aimed at bolstering protections for students who are accused of sexual assault on university campuses.

In a statement, Biden said the new rule was an effort by the Trump administration to “shame and silence” survivors of sexual assault. 

“It’s wrong,” Biden said. “And, it will be put to a quick end in January 2021, because as president, I’ll be right where I always have been throughout my career — on the side of survivors, who deserve to have their voices heard, their claims taken seriously and investigated, and their rights upheld.”

• The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest advocacy group fighting for LGBTQ equality, announced its endorsement of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Wednesday on the anniversary of his announcement that he supported same-sex marriage.

“Vice President Joe Biden is the leader our community and our country need at this moment,” said HRC President Alphonso David. “His dedication to advancing LGBTQ equality, even when it was unpopular to do so, has pushed our country and our movement forward.”

• Former Attorney General Eric Holder endorsed Joe Biden’s presidential bid on Tuesday, saying that he believes the former vice president will be “forward-leaning” on issues such as criminal justice reform.

• Former Vice President Joe Biden has called for justice for a black Georgia man killed by two armed white men in February after a video of the shooting — involving a former police officer and his son — surfaced on the internet this week.

“The video is clear: Ahmaud Arbery was killed in cold blood,” the presumptive Democratic nominee for president wrote on Twitter Tuesday evening. “My heart goes out to his family, who deserve justice and deserve it now. It is time for a swift, full, and transparent investigation into his murder.”

• Tara Reade, a former Senate staffer who has accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, says she hopes that he will end his campaign for the White House.

“I wish he would, but he won’t,” Reade said. “But I wish he would. That’s how I feel emotionally.”

• Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s deputy campaign manager said Thursday that “more inconsistencies” are arising regarding the allegation of sexual assault raised by Biden’s former Senate staffer Tara Reade. 

“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,” deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said in a statement. “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.”

Sources:  ABC News, Axios, CBS News, CNN, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Vanity Fair, Washington Post