Actress-turned-political activist Alyssa Milano appears to be running cover for former vice president and 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden, releasing a podcast interview with him about women’s issues and appearing on MSNBC Monday to defend him.
“I am proud to call Joe Biden a friend,” Alyssa Milano said on her podcast “Sorry Not Sorry.”
“He has been a leader and a champion on fighting violence against women for many years.”
Milano notes that her interview with Biden was recorded before numerous women came forward to say that he had made them uncomfortable with inappropriate touching. She played his statement regarding the allegations against him and segued into her recorded interview, first asking Biden, “Why was the issue of sexual assault important to you?”
Biden answered that his father taught him that “the greatest sin of all is the abuse of power, and a cardinal sin was for a man to raise his hand against a woman.”
The former senator then bizarrely claimed that Anita Hill’s testimony re-ignited his passion for protecting women from “sexual harassment and assault.” Of course, Biden was a part of the Anita Hill hearings and reportedly said at the time he thought she was lying.
Milano also asked Biden what he thought about people who say that the #MeToo movement has gone too far.
“You know, when I hear that the pendulum has swung too far, I think, how absurd that is. This kind of backlash occurs when you start to make real progress. We have hundreds of years to make up for. We have to change the culture of the United States and this is our moment. This is our moment.” Biden said. “#MeToo has been a powerful tribute to truth telling.”
Alyssa Milano was also joined on the podcast by Tarana Burke, an activist that is largely credited with founding the #MeToo movement.
“I’ve said this a hundred times–sexual violence, assault, harassment–those things don’t discriminate. There’s no one community that’s more depraved than another. But I think that the response to it differs. And so, it’s not that, you know, communities of color have more sexual violence, it’s that communities of color have less attention to what the kind of violence is happening in our communities,” Burke said.
She also blamed higher rates of sexual assault among “indigenous communities” on “white supremacy.”
Finally, Milano appeared on MSNBC Monday to further defend Biden, saying, “I also want to talk about Anita Hill and really just say that I know this is an issue that has come up for Democrats how the vice president had maybe handled that situation.”
She continued:
I can also tell you from my conversations with him, he deeply regrets what happened. He has dedicated much of his career, and I think we can’t look at his past myopically. We have to look at the big picture with co-authoring the Violence Against Women Act, always being a supporter of the women’s right to choose and fighting for women to be on the Judiciary Committee after Anita Hill. These are all things that are incredibly important to Vice President Biden. And I think it’s important that we discuss it and get it out on the table. But none of this I think if the country chooses that Joe Biden should be the Democratic nominee should stop Joe Biden from being that nominee.
Milano also said that the Democratic primary needs to be about “beating Trump,” who she described as a “horrible, horrible president.”
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