Reports on Thursday night are that Joe Biden intends to appear on the Morning Joe show Friday to finally address the allegations of sexual assault by Tara Reade.

BREAKING: Joe Biden will be on Morning Joe tomorrow to respond to Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegations.

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) April 30, 2020

So far, he’s only had his campaign staff issue a pro forma very weak denial.

The problem is that, as more news has come out, it hasn’t been helpful for his case. Reade has had five people confirm to a greater or lesser degree that she told them the story contemporaneously or over the years, including a neighbor who went on the record this week that Reade told her about the sexual assault and a colleague who confirmed she told her about the sexual harassment claim. Additionally, Reade has identified her mom as the person on a video who called into CNN’s Larry King in August of 1993, saying her daughter had “problems” with a “prominent senator” that were press worthy.

People are not feeling he’s going to be asked tough questions.

Biden was on Morning Joe two weeks ago and they gave him a pass https://t.co/ypoIEWCf5d

— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) April 30, 2020

They should just release the answers tonight that Biden is going to read off the teleprompter tomorrow on Morning Joe.

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) April 30, 2020

So let’s make a few predictions here.

First, Biden will deny that anything happened. That’s a given.

Second, he will say “Come on, man” at least once.

Third, he will talk about how he’s been such a champion of women’s rights over the years (well, except for all the inappropriate touching and the creepy family picture Senate swearing-in things).

Will he even get anything other than a softball question? I wonder.

A non-softball question would be to ask will he release his papers in regard to the time in question?

And why wouldn’t he do so? Why did his operatives go to the collection after he announced his run, when was that, and what were they looking for? Have they removed anything from the collection or related to Reade?

But here’s what I very definitely predict. That pretty much whatever he says, barring a truly disastrous interview, Democrats will say that he had now denied it, that they believe him, “Joe is Joe” in the words of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and he has now been “transparent” (even if he doesn’t release his papers). That the case is now “settled.” That’s the purpose of this interview. To see if they can put it to bed with him simply denying it. “It’s now time to move on and deal with the real issues.”

The wild card here, of course, is Biden himself. He virtually can never get through an interview without a gaffe. Not to mention, as we have seen, he has a hair-trigger temper that can go off like a rocket if someone asks him the wrong thing that he doesn’t like. We saw that with the poor auto worker who dared to tell him he was wrong and ignorant about guns and Joe almost took the poor guy’s head off. We saw how he yelled “why, why, why, why, why” at a reporter when asked about Hunter Biden. We saw him call a voter “fat” and another voter a “dog-faced pony soldier.”

This is going to be interesting.

Final prediction? There will be at least something in there that gets the gaffe meter spinning.