Tara Reade, who has accused Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her while she worked for him in 1993, now says that her mother called Larry King that same year to ask for advice on “problems” with a powerful politician. Reade has accused the former vice president of pinning her against a wall and penetrating her with his fingers when she was a staff assistant in his Senate office. (Biden has denied the allegations.) On Friday, she said that her now-deceased mother could be heard on an old clip of Larry King Live referring to Biden. In the newly uncovered footage of the episode—titled “Washington: The Cruelest City on Earth?”—a caller from San Luis Obispo, California (where property records indicate Reade’s mother lived at the time) ponders to King, “I’m wondering what a staffer might 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. The only thing she could have done was go to the press, and she chose not to do it out of respect for him.” Reade said on Twitter that it was her mother’s voice: “This is my mom. I miss her so much and her brave support of me.”
