'Morning Joe' Goes On the Record With Joe Biden

If Joe Biden was looking for a soft landing place to address sexual assault allegations made by a former Senate staffer, he didn’t find it Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” according to The Associated Press.

The 20-minute interview of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee conducted by Mika Brzezinski was blunt and frequently uncomfortable, a milestone media moment in the 2020 campaign.

The former vice president had faced increased pressure to publicly address the accusations by Tara Reade that he had assaulted her in the early 1990s, which he has consistently denied. During the interview, Biden said “it never, never happened.”

The New York Times, Washington Post and Associated Press have all done ultimately inconclusive investigations of the charges. Biden opponents say others in the media have been slow to report on them.

Much like President Donald Trump concentrates his interviews on Fox News Channel, Biden came to a network stocked with supportive opinion hosts. Brzezinski and her co-host, Joe Scarborough, have been blistering in daily coverage of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

When another MSNBC host, Chris Hayes, discussed Reade’s accusations earlier this week, there was an immediate call for his firing on Twitter by Biden supporters who thought that they didn’t deserve the public airing.

Despite that backdrop, Brzezinski didn’t pull punches. She graphically described the charges against Biden and asked him to “go on record with the American people. Did you sexually assault Tara Reade?”

Biden repeated his denial of the accusation.