McConnell Criticizes Media for Coverage of Sexual Assault Allegations Against Biden

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is ripping into the media for its coverage of sexual assault allegations against Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden.

“Well, at the very least it’s pretty obvious that the same people who were outraged about allegations — unproven allegations against Justice Kavanaugh when he was in high school seemed to have little or no interest,” McConnell said during an interview on Fox News Radio on Monday.

He continued, “I think if — these things ought to be dealt with symmetrically no matter who the accuser is and no matter who the accused is. I think what most Americans would like is sort of a symmetrical evaluation of these allegations rather than what we have seen at least so far.”

Biden has been accused by former Senate staffer, Tara Reade, of sexual assault, as IJR has previously reported.

Biden’s campaign has denied those allegations.

Reade made her allegation public in March, and some in the media have focused on what they say is a lack of attention Reade has received in national news outlets.

They have compared the treatment of the allegations against Biden to the accusations of sexual assault made against Supreme Court Justice ⚖️Brett Kavanaugh.

“Why is the paper of record now declining to publicize a very troubling allegation against former Vice President 👤Joe Biden?” Reason’s Robby Soave asked in an article examining the media’s coverage of Reade’s allegations.

And many pundits have accused the media of holding a double-standard when it comes to sexual assault allegations made against Republicans and Democrats.

“Kavanaugh was already in a public forum in a large way. Kavanaugh’s status as a Supreme Court justice was in question because of a very serious allegation,” Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The New York Times, said when asked about the coverage of Kavanaugh’s allegations compared to those against Biden.

He continued, “If you ask the average person in America, they didn’t know about the Tara Reade case. So I thought in that case, if The New York Times was going to introduce this to readers, we needed to introduce it with some reporting and perspective. Kavanaugh was in a very different situation. It was a live, ongoing story that had become the biggest political story in the country. It was just a different news judgment moment.”

The apparent lack of coverage of the allegations has become somewhat of a bipartisan issue. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said it is “legitimate” to talk about the allegations, as IJR has previously reported.

“If we again want to have integrity, you can’t say, you know — both believe women, support all of this, until it inconveniences you, until it inconveniences us,” she said. 

Additionally, former staffers for Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ (I-Vt.) campaign voiced frustration at the lack of attention the allegations have received.