Former Vice President Joe Biden responded to claims that he inappropriately kissed a Nevada political candidate in 2014.
“I felt two hands on my shoulders. I froze. ‘Why is the vice president of the United States touching me?’” Flores stated. “I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified.”
She continued, “He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head.”
Flores said Biden’s behavior “made me feel uneasy, gross, and confused.”
“Even if his behavior wasn’t violent or sexual, it was demeaning and disrespectful,” she said of the former Democratic senator from Delaware.
Her claim comes as Biden, who has been described as an early Democratic frontrunner for the 2020 presidential election, is believed to be preparing to announce if he will run for office.
A spokesman for Biden, Bill Russo, said on March 29 that he doesn’t recall the 2014 incident that Flores had described.
He added that “Vice President Biden was pleased to support Lucy Flores’s candidacy for Lieutenant Governor of Nevada in 2014 and to speak on her behalf at a well-attended public event.”
Biden, he said, believes Flores “has every right to share her own recollection and reflections.”
“He respects Ms. Flores as a strong and independent voice in our politics and wishes her only the best,” his spokesman stated.
Biden wants to outpace Beto O’Rourke and Bernie Sanders in what some call the “money primary” to enhance his standing, the source said.
Recently, he made a verbal slip during a speech at a Delaware Democratic Party dinner said, “I have the most progressive record of anybody running for the–anybody who would run.”
President Trump responded to Biden’s verbal gaffe.