Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos claims Joe Biden “pressed his forehead against mine” during a conversation before he became president — an act that she claims could technically be considered “sexual harassment” under the administration’s proposed rule changes to Title IX.
“I’ve only had one encounter with Joe Biden and it was before he decided to run for president again,” DeVos told Megyn Kelly’s podcast on SiriusXM on Wednesday.
“I was in a wheelchair. I was backstage after speaking,” DeVos recalled.
“He came up to me, put his hands on my shoulders, and his forehead on my forehead for several seconds and had a conversation with me.”
The former Trump cabinet member went on to say: “If [Biden] had done that as a student on a college campus under his proposed rule, I would have a Title IX sexual harassment allegation to levy against him because of his conduct.”
The Post has reached out to the White House seeking comment.
DeVos did not specify when the incident took place but the two were guest speakers at the 87th annual winter meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors in January 2019.
A photo from the event shows DeVos being pushed in a wheelchair while she was recovering from a bicycle crash.
She told Kelly that Biden inquired as to the nature of her injury.
Biden was “holding on to my shoulders with his forehead pressed to mine,” DeVos recalled. “(He) told me he had nine screws in his shoulder but everyone thought they were in his head.”
DeVos was critical of the Biden administration’s plan to roll back Trump era reforms that struck down protections for those who alleged they fell victim to sexual harassment.
In 2020, DeVos instituted reforms that were designed to “combat sexual misconduct without abandoning our core values of fairness, presumption of innocence and due process.”
She said the Biden administration’s proposed rule changes to Title IX, which govern what constitutes “sexual harassment,” would qualify the president’s behavior toward her as stepping over the line.
Biden’s Education Department began review of Title IX in March 2021 and is still gathering public comment to its proposed changes.
DeVos, the wife of billionaire businessman Dick DeVos, who is the son of Amway founder Richard DeVos, accused the Biden administration of being “bent on trying to politicize and weaponize a law that was meant to protect women and to give them access to education — not to weaponize it to harm others.”
Kelly told DeVos that Biden’s pressing his forehead against hers was “disgusting,” remarking: “I don’t even do that with my husband.”
During the 2020 presidential campaign, several women accused Biden of touching them inappropriately.
One of them, Vail Kohnert-Yount, also recalled the then-vice president pressing his forehead against hers during an encounter in the West Wing of the White House.
“He then put his hand on the back of my head and pressed his forehead to my forehead while he talked to me,” she told The Washington Post in April 2019.
