MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski is getting mostly positive reviews for her interview Friday with presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, after the “Morning Joe” co-host grilled Biden on sexual assault allegations made against him by former Senate staffer Tara Reade.
The extensive interview from Biden’s home studio in Delaware marks the first time he has addressed the allegations, which stem from a 1993 incident the ex-staffer first raised in March.
“Did you sexually assault Tara Reade?” Brzezinski asked to kick the interview off.
“No, it is not true,” the former vice president replied. “I’m saying unequivocally it never, never happened and it didn’t. It never happened.”
In one of the most pointed moments of the interview, Brzezinski, a vociferous critic of President Trump, asked Biden about his statements during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings supporting a woman making accusations against the nominee.
At the time, Biden said that when a woman comes forward to make allegations “in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real.”
“What I said during the Kavanaugh hearings was that she had a right to be heard,” Biden responded. “The fact that she came forward, the presumption would be that she was telling the truth, unless she wasn’t telling the truth.”
Positive reviews came in for Brzezinski on social media after the interview.
Brzezinski also won praise for pressing Biden on whether he’d agree to open records that might be held in his archives at the University of Delaware related to Reade.
One criticism of the interview regarded Brzezinski not asking about people who have publicly said that Reade told them of her allegations.
Biden is leading President Trump in the RealClearPolitics index of polls by 5.3 points.
Trump has also faced multiple allegations of harassment and assault from multiple women since announcing his candidacy in June 2015.