Biden alludes to Trump case while hailing Violence Against Women Act, survivors

At a White House event Thursday celebrating a 30-year-old law aimed at preventing violence against women, President Joe Biden alluded to a jury’s decision that Donald Trump was liable for sexual abuse.

Biden touted the 1994 Violence Against Women Act as 1,000 victims of violence — women the president in a Thursday op-ed dubbed “heroic survivors” — looked on from the executive mansion’s South Lawn.

Without directly naming Trump, Biden alluded to the former president’s case after lauding Vice President Kamala Harris’ record as a prosecutor and California attorney general going after criminals who had committed acts of violence against women.

“You cannot say that about my predecessor,” Biden said to applause. He also criticized “my predecessor” for nominating three of the six Supreme Court justices who voted to end federal abortion protections as he heaped praise on the assembled victims.

“Your courage inspires the nation,” Biden told them. “It wasn’t too long ago that we as a country didn’t want to talk about violence against women as a national epidemic. … It was referred to as a family affair.

“I believed the only way we could change the culture was shining a light on that culture — and saying its name,” he added. “Over the last 30 years … whenever we’ve reauthorized this law, we’ve strengthened it.”

Biden’s remarks followed a Glamour magazine op-ed published Thursday morning in which he wrote that as a young senator in the 1990s, he became interested in the issue because society was “wrong” to think that the federal government should not have a role in preventing violence against women and to turn a “blind eye” to it. Biden did not mention Trump in the Glamour piece.

He wrote that as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, he began to hold hearings on the topic. “With each shocking testimony, hearts and minds began to change,” Biden wrote. “Thanks to these courageous women, and advocates fighting alongside them, the Violence Against Women Act was signed into law on September 13, 1994.”

The White House on Thursday began the day by issuing a lengthy fact sheet touting Biden’s decades of work on the issue. White House aides have begun to talk more about Biden’s legacy in his final months in office — but Trump often makes that difficult.

“As President, he signed into law the VAWA Reauthorization Act of 2022 — critical legislation that expands access to safety and support for survivors, increases prevention efforts, and establishes new federal protections against online harassment and abuse,” the fact sheet stated. “The president and vice president also secured the highest-ever funding levels to implement VAWA, and the Biden-Harris Administration has acted quickly to implement the law’s new programs and protections.”

As Biden spoke outside White House Thursday evening, the Republican presidential nominee and former president who has been found liable for sexual abuse by a jury was asking voters to let him move back into the building.

Trump has appealed a civil verdict in which a nine-person jury last year found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming columnist E. Jean Carroll in a department store in the 1990s. The same jurors ordered him to pay Carroll $5 million in damages.

Following a court hearing on the appeal last Friday in Manhattan, Trump conducted a wild press appearance during which he criticized Carroll and other women who have accused him of sexual abuse or misconduct.

A noticeably angry Trump, speaking from his tower in New York City, repeated his claims that he had “never met” Carroll, and accused her of plagiarizing her accusations of the incident from the popular NBC program “Law & Order.”

“This case,” he griped, “it’s a scam.”

Carroll is not alone. Other women have accused Trump of physically assaulting them, on an airplane and at his Florida resort, but the former New York real estate mogul and reality television host again last week denied each accusation. He called them fabricated “stories” and claimed he didn’t know any of the women.

“When you’re rich and famous, a lot of people come up with a lot of stories,” he said at Trump Tower. “We have a very corrupt system of laws.”

The Carroll case made its way into Vice President Kamala Harris’ attack lines during Tuesday’s presidential debate with Trump.

After the former president had pivoted back to illegal immigration — something he did throughout the nearly two-hour verbal sparring session — Harris quipped: “Well, I think this is so rich.”

“Coming from someone who has been prosecuted for national security crimes, economic crimes, election interference, has been found liable for sexual assault and his next big court appearance is in November at his own criminal sentencing,” Harris said.

‘He raped her’

Biden had brought up the Carroll sexual assault ruling before.

“Donald Trump was found liable for sexual assault by a judge, who told us not to be fooled by Trump brushing it off,” the president said at a campaign rally on July 12, before he ended his bid for a second term.

“Here’s what the judge wrote. Quote, the judge in that case wrote, quote, ‘Mr. Trump attempted to minimize sexual abuse, finding it frivolous. Mr. Trump raped her.’ That’s the judge’s language, not mine,” he said. “‘Raped her,’ as many people understand the word rape.”

Notably, however, the jury in the Carroll case declined to find Trump liable for rape, agreeing instead to a sexual abuse ruling.

Women voters are expected to play a potentially decisive role in November’s election. Harris had a 13 percentage point lead over Trump among women in a 19th News-Survey Monkey survey of 20,762 adults, including 18,123 registered voters, conducted online Aug. 26-Sept. 4.

“MAGA Republicans found out the power of women in 2022,” Biden said during his Aug. 19 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, referring to the last midterm election. “And Donald Trump is going to find out the power of women in 2024. Watch.”

But during an Aug. 30 rally in Johnstown, Pa., Trump told an audience in the key swing state this: “Somebody said women don’t like Donald Trump. That’s wrong. I think they love me — I love them.”

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