Joe Biden doesn't recall alleged kissing incident from 2014

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Pelosi's advice to Biden on women: 'Pretend you have a cold'
Associated Press
Published:
April 2, 2019
Updated:
April 2, 2019 8:44 PM EDT
Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the Biden Courage Awards Tuesday, March 26, 2019, in New York.Frank Franklin II / AP
WASHINGTON — As former Vice-President Joe Biden’s camp scrambles to contain any political damage over his past behaviour with women, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has some words of advice: Keep your distance.
“Join the straight-arm club,” Pelosi said at a breakfast hour Washington event on Tuesday.
In other words, keep your handshakes at arms’ length and don’t be touchy-feely.
“Just pretend you have a cold and I have a cold,” Pelosi said.
President Donald Trump weighed in on the matter with a little more sarcasm. “Welcome to the world, Joe,” Trump said at a fundraising dinner for Republican House races. “You having a good time, Joe?” Trump himself has denied multiple accusations of sexual misconduct on his part.
Pelosi, D-Calif., said Biden “has to understand that in the world we are in now people’s space is important to them and what’s important is how they receive it, not necessarily how you intended it.”
Her remarks at an event sponsored by Politico came as Biden’s aides are striking a more aggressive tone as he considers seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and faces scrutiny over his past behaviour toward women.
In a statement Monday, Biden spokesman Bill Russo blasted “right wing trolls” from “the dark recesses of the internet” for conflating images of Biden embracing acquaintances, colleagues and friends in his official capacity during swearing-in ceremonies with uninvited touching.
Two women have said Biden touched them inappropriately in the past. Amy Lappos, a former aide to Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, said Monday that Biden touched her face with both hands and rubbed noses in 2009. Former Nevada politician Lucy Flores penned a magazine essay last week in which she wrote that Biden kissed her on the back of the head in 2014.
The developments underscored the challenge facing Biden should he decide to seek the White House. Following historic wins in the 2018 midterms, Democratic politics is dominated by energy from women. The allegations could leave the 76-year-old Biden, long known for his affectionate mannerisms, appearing out of touch with the party as the Democratic presidential primary begins.
Lappos told The Associated Press that she and other Himes aides were helping out at a fundraiser in a private home in Hartford, Connecticut, in October 2009 when Biden entered the kitchen to thank the group for pitching in.
“After he finished speaking, he stopped to talk to us about how important a congressional staff is, which I thought was awesome,” Lappos said.
She said she was stunned as Biden moved toward her.
“He wrapped both his hands around my face and pulled me in,” said Lappos, who is now 43. “I thought, ’Oh, God, he’s going to kiss me.’ Instead, he rubbed noses with me.”
Biden said nothing, she said, then moved off.
She said the experience left her feeling “weird and uncomfortable” and was “absolutely disrespectful of my personal boundaries.”
The Hartford Courant first reported Lappos’ assertion.
Russo, Biden’s spokesman, didn’t directly respond to Lappos, instead referring to a Sunday statement in which Biden said he doesn’t believe he has acted inappropriately during his long public life. The former vice-president said in that statement: “We have arrived at an important time when women feel they can and should relate their experiences, and men should pay attention. And I will.”
Biden hasn’t made a final decision on whether to run for the White House. But aides who weren’t authorized to discuss internal conversations and spoke on the condition of anonymity said there were no signs that his team was slowing its preparations for a campaign.
Asked on Monday by the AP about the accusations against Biden, Pelosi said, “I don’t think that this disqualifies him from running for president, not at all.”
Biden’s potential Democratic rivals haven’t rushed to back him up. Sen. Kamala Harris of California said Tuesday that she believed his accusers but that it’s up to Biden to decide whether to run.
Over the weekend, presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said Biden “needs to give an answer” about what occurred. Another 2020 hopeful, Kirsten Gillibrand, said, “If Vice-President Biden becomes a candidate, this is a topic he’ll have to engage on further.”
Ultraviolet, a women’s advocacy group, tweeted: “Joe Biden cannot paint himself as a champion of women and then refuse to listen and learn from a woman who says his actions demeaned her. Good intentions don’t matter if the actions are inappropriate. Do better, Joe. And thank you @LucyFlores for coming forward.”
http://torontosun.com/news/world/pelosis-advice-to-biden-on-women-pretend-you-have-a-cold
 
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Joe Biden: I’ll be more mindful of 'boundaries of protecting personal space'
Associated Press
Published:
April 3, 2019
Updated:
April 3, 2019 7:49 PM EDT
Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the Biden Courage Awards Tuesday, March 26, 2019, in New York.Frank Franklin II / AP
Former Vice-President Joe Biden acknowledged Wednesday that his tendency toward physical displays of affection and encouragement has made some women uncomfortable, and he promised to be “much more mindful” of respecting personal space.
“Social norms have begun to change. They’ve shifted,” the 76-year-old Biden said in a cellphone video posted to Twitter . “And the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset. And I get it. I get it. I hear what they are saying. I understand.”
Wearing a suit and open-collared shirt, Biden also teased an announcement of his political plans, promising to “be talking to you about a whole lot of issues.” Shortly after the video was released, a union announced Biden would speak at their conference in Washington on Friday.
The video was Biden’s first direct comment on what has tripped up his preparations to enter the 2020 Democratic presidential campaign. He did not directly apologize but seemed to be seeking to ease some people’s discomfort, which has raised questions about whether he could wage an effective campaign.
On Friday, former Nevada politician Lucy Flores wrote in New York Magazine that Biden approached her from behind, touched her shoulders and kissed the back of her head in 2014.
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Since then, another woman has said Biden grabbed her face when he was thanking congressional staff at a 2009 event.
Biden, a former longtime U.S. senator from Delaware, first said in a statement that he did not recall the episode that Flores initially described in the magazine piece and then in subsequent weekend interviews.
Joe Biden says he never meant to make women uncomfortable
Joe Biden faces new scrutiny from Dems over behaviour with women
Joe Biden doesn’t recall alleged kissing incident from 2014
In the video Wednesday, Biden insisted that what he described as the compassion from where the affection comes will not change and again nodded to the steps he’s taking toward running.
“But I’ll always believe governing — life, for that matter — is about connecting, connecting with people,” he said. “That won’t change.”
Biden also said that he would be more careful about his actions in the future.
“And I’ll be much more mindful. That’s my responsibility, my responsibility, and I’ll meet it,” Biden said.
And in so doing, Biden was tacitly acknowledging a nagging concern for some voters: that he cannot adapt.
“The idea that I can’t adjust to the fact that personal space is important, more important than it’s ever been, is just not thinkable,” he said in closing. “I will. I will.”
President Donald Trump, who has been accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct (which he denies), was asked Wednesday whether Biden should apologize for the ways he has interacted with women. The president replied, “No, he’s going to make his own decisions. He’s very capable of making a decision, I assume.”
A day earlier, Trump taunted Biden at a National Republican Congressional Committee fundraiser, saying, “Our former vice-president, I was going to call him. I don’t know him well. I was gonna say, ’Welcome to the world, Joe. You having a good time, Joe?”’
http://torontosun.com/news/world/jo...ul-of-boundaries-of-protecting-personal-space
 
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Ex-VP Joe Biden hugs union leader, quips 'I had permission'
Associated Press
Published:
April 5, 2019
Updated:
April 5, 2019 6:46 PM EDT
WASHINGTON — Former U.S. vice-president Joe Biden on Friday made light of his recent controversy about crossing physical boundaries with women, and he signalled in a resolute speech to union activists that’s he’s ready to run for president as a moderate Democrat in party that has been drifting left.
Biden, 76, opened his speech to a conference of electrical workers joking that he had “permission” to hug the union leader who introduced him. He later repeated the quip about a boy he invited up on stage. The remarks won cheers from the overwhelmingly male audience, but angered some of the activist women Biden has sought to convince he “gets” their concerns about his famously touchy-feely, and some say dated, style.
During his speech at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers conference and afterward to reporters, Biden defended his focus on the “personal connection” in politics.
“I’m sorry I didn’t understand more. I’m not sorry for any of my intentions,” he told reporters. “I’m not sorry for anything I’ve ever done — I’ve never been disrespectful, intentionally, to a man or a woman.”
Biden all but declared he intended to join the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, telling reporters he’s “putting everything together, man.” He noted his lawyers had warned him to speak carefully about his intentions but said he expected to “be standing before you all relatively soon.”
He also suggested his strategy. In a nostalgia-soaked speech, Biden made clear he would position himself outside the progressive wing of the party and seek support from traditional Democrats and the working-class voters who backed Donald Trump in 2016.
Biden said criticism of his bipartisan leanings was coming from the “far left” and reupped his appeal for compromise — a sometimes unpopular view in the Trump-era.
In this May 22, 2013 file photo, Newly commissioned officer Erin Talbot, left, poses for a photograph with Vice President Joe Biden during commencement for the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn. Jessica Hill / AP
He bemoaned modern politics that’s “gotten so damn elitist.”
“The vast majority of the members of the Democratic party are still basically liberal to moderate Democrats in the traditional sense,” Biden said. As to where he falls on ideological lines, he said, “I’m an Obama-Biden Democrat, man. And I’m proud of it.”
But signs of changes in the party have been evident in recent complaints about Biden’s history of publicly affectionate behaviour with women. Nevada politician Lucy Flores said she was uncomfortable when Biden kissed her on the back of the head backstage at a 2014 campaign event. Her account was countered by scores of women — from prominent lawmakers to former staffers — who praised him as a warm, affectionate person and a supportive boss. But several other women have also come forward to recount their own awkward interactions with him.
Flores panned Biden’s remarks Friday, tweeting: “To make light of something as serious as consent degrades the conversation women everywhere are courageously trying to have.”
Ultra Violet, a women’s rights group that initially urged Biden to do better, also reacted sharply:
“Joe Biden’s ’jokes’ were shameful, and not how a so-called ’champion of women’ should act,” the group posted on Twitter. “He sent a very clear signal to women today — he just doesn’t respect them.”
Biden did say the controversy “is going to have to change somewhat how I campaign.”
That controversy aside, Biden’s address seemed intended to highlight how he could win back white, blue-collar workers like those who supported Trump in 2016. He seemed to criticize his own party for walking away from the demographic.
He recounted a time when, he said, the dignity of teachers, sanitation and electrical line workers was treasured and the nation felt it had a common purpose. Saying his father, a salesman, told him to respect everyone, Biden alluded to various “sophisticated friends” who don’t get the significance of treating blue-collar labourers as equals.
“All you’re looking for is to be treated fairly, with respect, with some dignity,” Biden said. “Because you matter.”
Biden also noted he’d gotten criticism from the left for saying Democrats should work with Republicans to get things done, and in defending President Barack Obama’s signature law, the Affordable Care Act, which some Democratic presidential aspirants want to replace with a single-payer health care system.
“We need to build on it,” Biden said of the law. “What we can’t do is blow it up.”
Shortly after Biden was finished speaking, Trump hit back. “I’ve employed thousands of Electrical Workers,” the president tweeted as his plane flew toward the Mexican border with California. “They will be voting for me!”
However, the IBEW endorsed Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016.
Biden’s advisers had signalled ahead of the speech that he was not going to mention the physical-touching controversy. But he attempted to defuse it by embracing the union’s male president and kidding about it. While that may have landed with a thud to some outside the room, the labour leaders rose to their feet and applauded.
The criticism of Biden’s form of affection is a symptom of what ails not just politics but American life, said Denise Johnson, an attendee from Mechanicsville, Md.
“He’s a warm and affectionate person. He’s sincere and he speaks from his heart,” said Johnson, who works for the IBEW in Washington. “But in the society we live, we’re losing that warmth. We need to get it back. This could actually rally for him.”
Friday was the second time in two days that President Trump attacked Biden on Twitter. Despite more than a dozen women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, on Thursday the president posted a doctored version of a cellphone video Biden released addressing the controversy over his touching. In Trump’s version, a Biden avatar approaches Biden from behind and appears to grab his shoulders.
Trump has denied the allegations of sexual misconduct, and on Friday he told reporters he saw no reason to avoid going after Biden on the issue. “Yeah, I think I’m a very good messenger and people got a kick out of it,” Trump said.
None of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates commented on Biden’s appearance.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, when asked after an event thanking small donors if she had ever felt uncomfortable around Biden, said, “I’ve said all I’m going to say about Joe Biden.”
http://torontosun.com/news/world/ex-vp-joe-biden-hugs-union-leader-quips-i-had-permission
 
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