UPDATE: After The Intercept published a transcript of the “Larry King Live” call, the Media Research Center located the video Friday evening.
A new report in The Intercept provides some additional corroborating evidence for Tara Reade’s allegation of sexual assault against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Intercept writer Ryan Grim obtained the transcript of a phone call to “Larry King Live” in August of 1993 that matches Reid’s prior description of a call her late mother made to the show, requesting advice on how to resolve workplace problems with a senator.
After Grim, who was the first to report on Reade’s allegation, mentioned the call during a podcast, he says a listener tracked down a transcript of the conversation. Congressional records show August 1993 as Reade’s last month with the Senate. On an Aug. 11, 1993 edition of “Larry King Live,” according to the Intercept, a woman called asking how congressional staffers can resolve their problems without going to the press, citing her daughter’s experience working for a prominent senator. Reade’s mother lived in San Luis Obispo at the time.
From the report:
KING: San Luis Obispo, California, hello.
CALLER: Yes, hello. I’m wondering what a staffer would do besides go to the press in Washington? My daughter has just left there, after working for a prominent senator, and could not get through with her problems at all, and the only thing she could have done was go to the press, and she chose not to do it out of respect for him.
KING: In other words, she had a story to tell but, out of respect for the person she worked for, she didn’t tell it?
CALLER: That’s true.
Grim highlighted some issues between Reade’s story and the substance of the call. “On the one hand, the caller does not specifically mention ‘sexual harassment’ or retaliation, as Reade had recalled,” he wrote. “On the other hand, the reference to being unable to ‘get through with her problems’ aligns with Reade’s claim that she complained to superiors in Biden’s office and got nowhere, and the reference to going to the press makes clear that the caller is talking about more than just generic problems at the office.”
In August '93, the month Tara Reade left Biden's office, a woman called the Larry King show saying her daughter had problems at a prominent senator's office but did not want to go to the press about it. The woman was Reade's late mother. https://t.co/KHpqDlrpOG pic.twitter.com/9SnX6P6gI7
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) April 24, 2020
“The problems, she makes clear, would damage the senator if exposed,” notes Grim.
Reade alleges that Biden forcibly kissed and penetrated her with his fingers while she worked as a staff assistant in his Senate office in 1993. She says she told her mother, her brother, and a friend at the time. Her brother and friend have confirmed this story to press. Legacy media was noticeably slow to report on Reade’s story, despite its record of jumping on allegations against conservative figures.
Reade, however, does not remember the date or location of the incident, and did not report it when she went public last year with claims that Biden inappropriately touched her neck and hair. Three Biden aides to whom Reade claims to have told about the harassment in 1993 deny any knowledge of the complaint.
Biden has denied the allegation through his campaign as well. Asked to comment on Reade last week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who endorsed Biden, said it was “legitimate to talk about” the accusation.
