- The Washington Times - Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Donald Trump Jr. says his father’s campaign operates under the assumption that each day will include “do you beat your wife?”-type questions by the media while any accusation of sexual misconduct against former Vice President Joseph R. Biden is largely ignored.

President Trump’s eldest son agreed to a wide-ranging interview with Breitbart News’ SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel on Saturday when the topic of Tara Reade, the ex-Senate staffer who claims Mr. Biden sexually assaulted her in the 90s, came up.

Mr. Trump Jr. used examples of media bias regarding the Coronavirus Task Force briefings, along with the media’s coverage of Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s nomination process, to detail what the 2020 campaign is up against.

“You can’t win,” the Republican said Saturday of his father’s willingness to speak for hours on end with reporters. “They’re going to try to find something weird they can manipulate or ask a sort of leading or let’s call it a ’do you beat your wife?’ question where there’s no good answer. Like, what do you mean? They do that so often. … You’re never going to get a fair shot. They’re never going to ask Joe Biden a tough question, they’re never going to criticize some of the pure idiocy that comes out of the guy’s mouth, and they’re never going to question that the guy can’t remember where he is 50 percent of the time.”

The Republican then dovetailed into the media’s reluctance to cover Ms. Reade’s allegations.

“They’re certainly not going to ask him about what now seems like more credible allegations regarding Tara Reade and sexual assault, literally by a Senate staffer — not some obscure person who’s not even there, but by a Senate staffer. That’s the battlefield. That’s the battlefield we’re on. It’s never going to be fair.”

Kate Bedingfield, Mr. Biden’s communications director, said earlier this month that “women have a right to tell their story” in response to the claims.

The former vice president is accused of sexually assaulting Ms. Reade in 1993 while he was still a senator.

A 1993 episode of “Larry King Live” has since been spotlighted because the anonymous caller talking about such an incident has been revealed to be Ms. Reade’s mother.

“CNN hasn’t even touched this thing, and the corroborating evidence was on their network,” Mr. Trump Jr. said. “It was probably one of the biggest stories Larry King didn’t know he had at the time. I don’t imagine they’ll do anything with it. I literally think they will just put their heads in the sand and make sure that no one possibly hears about these things because that’s the feeling and sentiment I get from today’s media. They have no interest in the truth. They have interest in their narrative. That narrative is aligned basically 100 percent with the DNC talking points, and they don’t ’believe all women.’ They only believe women if they’re accusing conservatives. It’s the greatest form of hypocrisy.”

Mr. Trump Jr. said that Americans should compare the coverage of Mr. Biden’s situation with the way then-Judge Kavanaugh was treated.

College professor Christine Blasey Ford accused the judge of attempted rape without corroborating evidence; the alleged event took place at an unspecified time and place while she was a teenager.

“That didn’t stop [the media] from doing a thousand different pieces, basically, accusing him of those things — not even questioning him, but accusing him and trying to destroy his life and ruin his family,” Mr. Trump Jr. said. “Before he was appointed to the Supreme Court, the only thing I’d ever seen of Brett Kavanaugh was pictures of the guy in like a soup kitchen on a Sunday serving food. They would do whatever they could to destroy him.”

• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.

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