WASHINGTON • United States President Donald Trump, himself a subject of multiple sex assault allegations, came out on Friday on the side of his Democratic challenger Joe Biden, telling him to fight an accusation that he assaulted a woman three decades ago.
"I would just say to Joe Biden: Just go out and fight it. It's, you know, it's one of those things," Mr Trump said in an interview with right-wing radio host Dan Bongino.
"You know, it's his problem, but I like to get in front of it and I just deny it. If it's not true, you deny it," Mr Trump said.
"I've been a total victim of this nonsense false accusations."
The advice was Mr Trump's first public comment since Mr Biden broke his own silence on the controversy, telling an MSNBC television interview on Friday that the allegation of assault was "unequivocally" untrue.
"I don't know why after 27 years, all of this gets raised," said Mr Biden, who leads Mr Trump in most polls ahead of the November presidential election.
He is accused by Ms Tara Reade, a former staff member when he was a senator, of pinning her against a wall and digitally penetrating her in 1993, when she was 29.
Many Democrats said they accepted Mr Biden's denial and remain committed to supporting him.
Ms Reade's accusation has forced Democrats to turn the lens of the #MeToo movement on one of their own.
They are left having to balance believing women with also supporting the accused man, who just happens to be the current party leader.
Faced with the choice between Mr Biden and Mr Trump, whose record includes allegations made by dozens of women, they see only one possible path.
"I believe @JoeBiden," former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, who has endorsed him, wrote on Twitter.
"Anyone who knows him knows this allegation is antithetical to his character, to the culture in his office, to his soul. He has never been that kind of guy. Ever. The story has been heard and vetted. No staffer remembers it. No complaint found. Move on."
There are some, however, who asked Mr Biden - who was former president Barack Obama's vice-president - to address the accusation.
"It can't appear that she's being ignored just because it's an inconvenient truth for certain people in the Democratic Party," said Mrs Nina Turner, who was national campaign co-chairman for the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders, who dropped out of the Democratic race and endorsed Mr Biden.
Mr Trump came into office in 2016 having brushed off more than a dozen accusations from women that over the years, he committed everything from harassment to rape.
Shortly before the election, a tape recording emerged, dating from 2005, in which Mr Trump was heard boasting about how his fame allowed him to "grab" women by the genitals when he wanted.
Mr Trump dismissed this as "locker room banter" but subsequently apologised.
In his interview with Mr Bongino, Mr Trump echoed many conservatives in angrily comparing the relatively low-heat Mr Biden controversy with the intense scandal that blew up around Mr Trump's latest Supreme Court pick, Mr Brett Kavanaugh.
Mr Kavanaugh's 2018 confirmation process was severely rocked by an accusation from Ms Christine Blasey Ford that he had tried to rape her when they were teenagers in 1982.
Despite defending Mr Biden, Mr Trump stressed that he found the accuser more solid than in Mr Kavanaugh's case - a talking point that is widely shared in the Republican camp.
"I watched Tara and she seems very credible," Mr Trump said, adding that he had also listened to interviews in which the now late mother of Ms Reade and others said they had heard her tell the story years ago.
"So, you know, I guess in a way you could say, I'm sticking up for him, but the mother was very compelling, certainly, and the girlfriend or the friends were very compelling," Mr Trump said.
"Certainly far more compelling than anything they had with respect to Brett Kavanaugh."
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BLOOMBERG, REUTERS
