“We know from campaigns and from politics that people raise issues and they have to address them, and that’s what he will have to do with the voters if he gets into the race,” Ms. Klobuchar said, while adding that she has “no reason not to believe” Ms. Flores.
And Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to President Trump, said on “Fox News Sunday,” “I think Joe Biden has a big problem because he calls it affection and handshakes. His party calls it completely inappropriate.”
In a telephone interview on Saturday, Ms. Flores, who was attending Beto O’Rourke’s kickoff campaign rally in El Paso, said she expected Mr. Biden, and some of the public, to minimize the interaction. (Ms. Flores has said she has not yet endorsed any candidate for president and has argued that even if and when she does, her endorsement would not “erase” Mr. Biden’s “inappropriate behavior.”)
“We don’t have a system in any way, shape or form right now in politics where women and victims can speak out and can have their voices heard and can bring some accountability to people who are misbehaving and people who have done bad things,” she said.
Ms. Flores also said she wanted to clarify that the interaction with Mr. Biden she described was not out in the open, a point she said might have been initially misunderstood.
“It was private because we were on the side of the stage behind curtains where the audience cannot see, behind the stage,’’ she said. “There wasn’t a ton of people around.”
If staff members were present, she added, they were likely running around.
On Saturday night, Henry R. Munoz III, the organizer of the 2014 rally and co-founder of the Latino Victory Project, issued a statement saying there did not appear to be any evidence that Ms. Flores and Mr. Biden were ever alone together at the event. Mr. Munoz said the two waited in different holding rooms, then were briefly together offstage “surrounded by security, medical and production staff.’’