Lucy Flores, the latest woman to bring allegations of inappropriate behavior by former Vice President Joe Biden, believes his repeated boundary crossing disqualifies him from running for president.

On Friday, the former Nevada legislator wrote an essay detailing a 2014 incident in which Biden placed his hands on her, smelled her hair and kissed her head.

During an appearance on CNN today, Flores was asked if Biden’s behavior should make him ineligible to run for president.

“For me, it’s disqualifying. I think it’s up to everybody else to make that decision,” Flores told Jake Tapper, “considering, again, the entire scope of his background, of the positions that he’s taken.”

Flores criticized Biden’s handling of the Anita Hill allegations during the confirmation hearing of Clarence Thomas when Biden was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

She said the hearing “was completely inappropriate and lacked empathy, and frankly, lacked accountability.”

“I find a lot of his background problematic,” Flores said.

She added “party loyalists” are expected to remain quiet with their allegations, but she believes there are so many other candidates, she said she felt “a little less pressure in terms of feeling like I could speak out.”

Flores touched off the firestorm against Biden with a piece in The Cut. It reads in part:

I found my way to the holding room for the speakers, where everyone was chatting, taking photos, and getting ready to speak to the hundreds of voters in the audience. Just before the speeches, we were ushered to the side of the stage where we were lined up by order of introduction. As I was taking deep breaths and preparing myself to make my case to the crowd, I felt two hands on my shoulders. I froze. “Why is the vice-president of the United States touching me?”

I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, “I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?” He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused. There is a Spanish saying, “tragame tierra,” it means, “earth, swallow me whole.” I couldn’t move and I couldn’t say anything. I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me. My name was called and I was never happier to get on stage in front of an audience.

Read the whole column here.

In the CNN appearance, Flores found it hard to believe a Biden staffer has never said anything to him before.

You Might Like

• 
• 
• 

“I just can’t imagine that there was never a situation where someone said to him, ‘Mr. Vice President, you probably should stop doing that,'” she said, “‘You should probably stop touching women in that way. You should probably keep your hands to yourself.'”

Flores acknowledged she supported Bernie Sanders in 2016 during the appearance.

Just three days earlier, Biden effectively condemned himself for what Flores said he did to her.

Speaking at The Biden Courage Awards — yes, really — Biden said, “No man has a right to lay a hand on a woman, no matter what she’s wearing, she does, who she is, unless it’s in self-defense. Never, never, never.”

He lectured, “If you see a brother taking an inebriated co-ed up the stairs at a fraternity house and you don’t go and stop it, you’re a damn coward.”

“You don’t deserve to be called a man.”