The former vice president will be interviewed on the morning show "Morning Joe" in order to "respond for the first time to a recent charge of sexual assault," the MSNBC channel tweeted on Thursday. Joe Biden, Democratic candidate for the US presidential election, has been accused since March of having sexually assaulted a woman in the 1990s. Despite the support of his party's tenors, the affair paralyzes his campaign. 

Democratic candidate for the White House Joe Biden will "respond for the first time" Friday, during a television interview, to the woman who accuses him of a sexual assault dating back to the 1990s, announced the American channel  MSNBC . Tara Reade, 56, accuses Joe Biden, 77, of having sexually assaulted her in a corridor of the United States Congress, when he was a senator. Joe Biden firmly denied, through his spokesperson, in mid-April but has since remained silent on the subject. 

Tomorrow in a @Morning_Joe exclusive, former Vice President @JoeBiden joins @JoeNBC, @morningmika & @WillieGeist to respond for the first time to the recent allegation of sexual assault.

- MSNBC Public Relations (@MSNBCPR) April 30, 2020

The case paralyzes Joe Biden's presidential campaign

He was not asked about the issue in interviews since Tara Reade's first statements on the subject, in a podcast on March 25. With the recent release of new material, pressure was mounting to explain it. Donald Trump, himself the subject of several accusations of harassment and sexual assault in recent years, said on Thursday that he had been "falsely accused many times". "These could be false accusations," he said of the one targeting his Democratic rival. "I think he should answer it," he added.

The former right-hand man of Barack Obama had recalled, Wednesday evening, his engagement in the fight against violence made against women and sexual assault. The affair has silenced for several days all his other announcements, such as the launch on Thursday of the team that will help him choose the woman who would become, in the event of victory, the first vice-president of the United States.

Republicans say some Democrats are "hypocrites"

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who declared her support this week, said she had "full respect" for the #MeToo movement. But "there is also the presumption of innocence," she added. Joe Biden "is a very honest person (...). He is the author of the law against violence against women" adopted in 1994, she said. 

Some accuse Nancy Pelosi as well as Joe Biden's potential running mate of hypocrisy, since they said they believed the woman who had accused Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, in the process of confirming for a seat on the Supreme Court. Nancy Pelosi did so after the long hearing, under oath, of Christine Blasey Ford at the Congress in 2018.