Since film magnate Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual harassment and assault in October, scores of women have come forward as part of the #MeToo movement to say that they, too, have been victims of sexual misconduct. As more and more people come forward with allegations against powerful people and some of those powerful people lose their jobs, some have called the moment in history a tipping point ; others have called it a reckoning . And while many are being taken to task for their alleged misconduct and there is potential for a cultural shift in the way we view sexual harassment and assault, this isn't the first time women have publicly spoken out against alleged harassers. In 1991, law professor Anita Hill sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Senator Joe Biden , and detailed the alleged harassment she experienced from her boss, Clarence Thomas, who was just about to be confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice. Throughout Hill's testimony, she weathered attacks on her character and her trustworthiness from those on the Senate panel, and many have blamed Biden for allowing those attacks and failing to do more. Nearly three decades after her testimony, and after Thomas was seated on the court, Biden wants Anita Hill to know that he's sorry. 
 
 In an interview with Teen Vogue 's editor in chief, Elaine Welteroth, Biden said there are a few things he would do differently if he could go back and redo those Anita Hill hearings. 
 
 "I believed Anita Hill. I voted against Clarence Thomas. And I insisted the next election — I campaigned for two women Senators on the condition that if they won they would come on the Judiciary Committee, so there would never be again all men making a judgment on this," Biden said. "And my one regret is that I wasn’t able to tone down the attacks on her by some of my Republican friends. I mean, they really went after her. As much as I tried to intervene, I did not have the power to gavel them out of order. I tried to be like a judge and only allow a question that would be relevant to ask." 
 
 But ultimately, Biden said he wasn't able to do enough. 
 
 "I wasn’t able to convince three women we’d subpoenaed to cooperate with testimony. At the last minute, they changed their mind and said they wouldn’t do it. I had them sign an affidavit saying, ‘I want you to come, and you’re saying, “No, I will not come.“‘ In retrospect, some, including Anita, think I should have subpoenaed them no matter what," he said. "The reason I didn’t: I was worried they would come and not corroborate what she said and make — I mean, Clarence Thomas won by only two votes. And we still thought we had a chance at beating him." 
 
 "I wish I had been able to do more for Anita Hill," he said. "I owe her an apology." 
 
 Many, including Hill, have criticized Biden for allowing some of the remarks those on the Committee made, including insinuations that Thomas allegedly talking about women's breast sizes was "not too bad," according to The Washington Post. Some even said Biden's tone with Hill bordered on disbelief of her accusations. According to Politico , the hearing was "seen as Biden's subjecting an African-American woman to public humiliation and abuse." In fact, Biden has offered public apologies to Hill before , but she has said it wasn't enough. 
 
 "I still don’t think it takes ownership of his role in what happened," Hill said in a recent interview with The Washington Post . "And he also doesn’t understand that it wasn’t just that I felt it was not fair. It was that women were looking to the Senate Judiciary Committee and his leadership to really open the way to have these kinds of hearings. They should have been using best practices to show leadership on this issue on behalf of women’s equality. And they did just the opposite." 
 
 "You cannot just bring people forward into a process where you know they’re not going to be treated fairly," she continued. "That’s not being heard." 
 
 In the Post interview, Hill said truly being heard is what women are grappling with today during the #MeToo movement. Biden told Teen Vogue something similar. 
 
 "We’re now at a point here where we have a chance to change the culture," he said. Biden was clear that harassment is a part of our culture, deeply ingrained and even normalized to a point where we sometimes don't even notice it. Through his work on college campuses and involving men in the effort to prevent sexual violence through his It's on Us campaign, Biden said he hopes he's able to make some headway toward the sea change that's clearly coming. 
 
 "I’ve gotten asked by press a lot of the last 23 years, how will I know when I’ve succeeded. We will have succeeded when not a single woman who is abused ever, ever, ever asks herself, What did I do?" he said. "We’ve got to change it. We’ve got to change the culture." 
 
 Related: The Surprising Way Experts Are Successfully Combating Sexual Assaults on College Campuses ||||| The revisiting of former Vice President Joe Biden’s handling of Anita Hill's allegations in 1991 has offered other potential Democratic candidates a wide opening as they jockey for position ahead of the 2020 campaign. | Patrick Semansky/AP Photo Politics Biden confronts the ghost of Anita Hill ‘It’s not going to be something he can charm out of. I think in 2018, you can’t just smile it away,’ said one Democrat. 
 
 Joe Biden began the month by kissing foreheads and preaching unity at a breezy Labor Day march in Pittsburgh. He will end it under question about whether his decades-old record in Congress can withstand the withering scrutiny of the current political moment. 
 
 With a sexual assault allegation against Brett Kavanaugh roiling Washington, Biden’s handling of a similar matter — the Anita Hill hearings — has erupted back into public view, exposing a rare point of weakness for Biden in the run-up to the 2020 presidential campaign. 
 
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 It’s an issue that can’t easily be sidestepped in the post-Obama era Democratic Party, where the conversation surrounding sexual harassment is light years beyond where it was in the early 1990s when Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the grass-roots energy is in the progressive wing. If the former vice president decides to run, he’ll have to navigate a field that could exceed 20 challengers — almost none of whom will be burdened with the baggage of seemingly ancient political and culture wars. 
 
 Toi Hutchinson, president of the National Association of State Legislators and an Illinois Democratic state senator who helped launch a statewide #MeToo awareness effort, said Biden will face a tough road with the 2020 electorate if he doesn’t address the Hill hearings straight on. 
 
 “He in particular is going to have to find a way to connect to women voters and say, ‘This is what we have learned [since Biden’s time as Judiciary chairman]’, said Hutchinson, who wasn’t yet born when Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972. “It’s not going to be something he can charm out of. I think in 2018, you can’t just smile it away. I think what [Biden] does best is when he goes straight up the middle, takes it on directly. I don’t think there’s any other way. It offers an opportunity to look people square in the eye and take on this issue directly. And I think women in this country will respond to his directness.” 
 
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 Now a front-runner in early Democratic primary polls, Biden was pilloried at the time for his handling of the 1991 confirmation hearings of then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Thomas was accused by Hill of inappropriate sexual behavior, and Biden was criticized for failing to blunt attacks on Hill and for not calling witnesses who could have supported her. 
 
 “It certainly was not his best moment,” said former Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.), one of seven Democratic women who dramatically marched to the room where Senate Democrats were caucusing in 1991 in an attempt to make their case for why the vote on Thomas should be delayed as a result of Hill's accusations. “To have railroaded that through and not listened to the other three women and let his colleagues absolutely tear her apart was absolutely horrible.” 
 
 Schroeder said, “I don’t think people will be happy about it, the more they think about it. A lot of people probably forgot about it, but this brings it all fresh to mind again. We can all say the Republicans are messing up, but guess who messed up first?” 
 
 Biden’s management of the Hill testimony in Thomas' confirmation hearings has long loomed in the background of his political biography, viewed as a weakness when he considered a presidential run in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, the eventual nominee. But two years later, the weight of the #MeToo movement has only intensified the spotlight on politicians’ handling of issues related to sexual harassment and misconduct. 
 
 In an interview with Elle , published Tuesday, Hill noted that Biden last year acknowledged he owed her an apology. But he never took the next step. 
 
 “‘He said, ‘I owe her an apology.’ People were asking, ‘When are you going to apologize to her?’”’ Hill told Elle of Biden. “It’s become sort of a running joke in the household when someone rings the doorbell and we’re not expecting company. ‘Oh,’ we say, ‘is that Joe Biden coming to apologize?’” 
 
 Asked whether she was still waiting for Biden’s apology, Hill said: “There are more important things to me now than hearing an apology from Joe Biden. I’m OK with where I am.” 
 
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 Patti Solis Doyle, who served as Biden’s campaign chief of staff in 2008, called the former vice president one of the most viable potential 2020 candidates in the Democratic field. Still, she acknowledged that if Biden doesn't apologize directly and put the matter behind him quickly, the issue threatens to hang over him in 2020, when the #MeToo issues are likely to play a prominent role in the presidential debate. 
 
 “If Anita Hill believes she’s owed an apology, then she’s owed an apology, without question. And he should give one,” Solis Doyle said. “Certainly, Joe Biden did not do the harassing. Joe Biden ended up voting against Clarence Thomas. But what was done to Anita Hill in those hearings … it was unseemly. And as chair of the Judiciary back then, he probably should have taken a bigger role in making Anita Hill feel safe and comfortable, and clearly, she did not feel that way.” 
 
 Solis Doyle said Biden would have an easier time touting his record on women’s issues and connecting with the surge of women voters if he put the matter to rest. 
 
 “I don’t think it’s going to be a disqualifying issue for Joe Biden, but he should address it and he should apologize,” she said. “What is happening with the very credible and serious allegations against Judge Kavanaugh has brought this to the forefront of our politics. I think if Judge Kavanaugh gets [confirmed], it will be a topic of discussion in the midterm elections … thereby making it a topic of discussion in 2020.” 
 
 Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who lobbied the Senate on Hill’s behalf along with Schroeder in 1991, said the injustice of the Anita Hill hearings “wasn’t Biden alone” and that while Biden will be “examined for it” in 2020, he will also be credited for his work on the Violence Against Women Act, among other issues. 
 
 “I’m not sure the public will hold this against him given his apologies, and his advice from his own experience,” she said. 
 
 Norton said the Kavanaugh hearings may signal a broader shift in politics ahead of the 2020 presidential campaign. Following Hill's testimony in the Thomas confirmation hearings, she said, the country “turned on its heel, it became the Year of the Woman … And I must say, I’m seeing a redux of that.” 
 
 A Biden spokesman declined to comment Thursday, but pointed to the former Delaware senator’s extensive remarks on the issue in December in Teen Vogue . He told the magazine that month, "I wish I had been able to do more for Anita Hill … I owe her an apology." 
 
 That interview is among the clear signs that Biden understands he has not fully put the issue behind him — a necessity given the critical role women and black voters play in a Democratic primary. On Friday, Biden said Kavanagh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, "should not have to go through what Anita Hill went through” if she chooses to testify. 
 
 “My biggest regret was I didn't know how I could shut you off if you were a senator and you were attacking Anita Hills’ character,” Biden told NBC’s ‘Today’ show. "Under the Senate rules I can’t gavel you down and say you can’t ask that question although I tried." 
 
 The revisiting of Biden’s performance in 1991 has offered other potential Democratic candidates a wide opening as they jockey for position ahead of the 2020 campaign. 
 
 A lawyer for Ford has said her client is “prepared” to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week, giving two high-profile Democrats, Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey, an opportunity to distinguish themselves from Biden’s performance years ago. 
 
 “Everyone’s always wondered whether we were going to see a tail-off of this #MeToo stuff. And it’s not. It’s sticking,” said Amanda Renteria, a former top campaign aide to Hillary Clinton. “I do think anyone, no matter where you are, no matter where you’re running, needs to really think about whatever role they’ve played in the past, and how that will be viewed in a new world.” 
 
 If Biden runs for president, Renteria said, “This bucket of issues is obviously going to come up.” 
 
 Like many Democrats, however, Renteria suggested the Anita Hill hearings are far from insurmountable for Biden. 
 
 “He’s just so real and authentic — I think he’ll figure out that piece, if that’s what he wants to run,” Renteria said. 
 
 Biden’s broader record also shows a progression that will enable him to argue that his understanding as an elected official grew over the years, including authoring the Violence Against Women Act and spearheading the “It’s on Us” campaign, which raised awareness about sexual assault on collect campuses. 
 
 “I think starting with the crime bill and passage of the Violence Against Women Act, that was his first act of atonement, if you will, for what he did to Anita Hill,” said Christine Pelosi, a Democratic National Committee member from California and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's daughter. 
 
 Saying that Biden had exhibited a “series of awakenings,” Pelosi said, “You can draw a line from a disgraceful hearing to seeds of hope in the Violence Against Women Act to ‘It’s on Us’ as vice president.” 
 
 Adelaide “Tootsie” Dennis Kline, an attorney and founding member of the South Carolina-based I Believe Anita Hill group, said she, too, believed Biden could overcome the 1991 hearing — but only because she doubted the salience of sexual harassment as a voting issue. 
 
 “It’s accepted by a lot of voters without any problems, apparently,” she said. 
 
 Of Biden, Kline said, “I don’t know if Sen. Biden has become more mature about these issues since then. … I don’t think a lot of people have gotten it. It’s been a lot of time — 27 years — and I don’t see the landscape changing very much.” ||||| Meghan McCain hit back on Friday at a Trump administration official who mocked her father, Sen. John McCain John Sidney McCainSchumer faces heavy pressure from left on Supreme Court Schumer: Senate could force Trump to nominate moderate Supreme Court pick Juan Williams: Court's fate hangs in the balance MORE (R-Ariz.), over his battle with brain cancer, suggesting that the staffer should be fired. 
 
 The Hill reported Thursday that White House special assistant Kelly Sadler dismissed John McCain's opposition to President Trump Donald John TrumpTrump: Democratic voters will support Republicans because of ICE criticism Coney Barrett, Kavanaugh among candidates who met with Trump: report Trump administration recommends against allowing China Mobile access to US market MORE's nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, saying "he's dying anyway." 
 
 “I don't understand what kind of environment you're working in when that would be acceptable and then you could come to work the next day and still have a job," Meghan McCain said on "The View." "And that's all I have to say about it." 
 
 "The View" co-host Meghan McCain added that what's important "is not how you die, it is how you live," though she conceded that "it was a hard day yesterday" after the insult was reported. 
 
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 "My father's legacy is going to be talked about for hundreds and hundreds of years," she said. "These people? Nothing burgers." 
 
 John McCain, who last year was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer, announced his opposition to Haspel's nomination on Wednesday, citing her failure to sufficiently denounce torture. 
 
 Haspel has come under fire from many lawmakers — mostly Democrats — because of her ties to brutal detention and interrogation techniques used by the CIA on terror suspects in the years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. 
 
 She vowed during her confirmation hearing on Wednesday not to restart the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation program if confirmed as CIA director. 
 
 But some lawmakers bridled at her failure to condemn waterboarding or to state unequivocally that torture is immoral. 
 
 The senator and former GOP presidential nominee was himself tortured during his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, including being forced into falsely confessing to crimes. He has remained a staunch opponent of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. 
 
 McCain has been absent from the Senate as he treats his cancer in Arizona. 
 
 “The other thing I want to say,” Meghan McCain said Friday, “is that, Kelly, there's a little news flash, and this may be a little intense for 11 o’clock in the morning on a Friday, but we're all dying.”
– When law professor Anita Hill faced the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 to testify about the sexual harassment she said she endured from then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, she also faced down attacks on her character and credibility—and many (including Hill herself) still blame Joe Biden, the senator who led the panel, for allowing that to happen. Now he tells Teen Vogue he's sorry for his role. "I believed Anita Hill. I voted against Clarence Thomas," he says. "And my one regret is that I wasn't able to tone down the attacks on her by some of my Republican friends. I mean, they really went after her." He says he felt his hands were tied as he tried to simply play "judge" in the proceedings, but he wonders if he could've done more, including subpoenaing witnesses who may have backed Hill up. "I wish I had been able to do more for Anita Hill," he says. "I owe her an apology." Also making the rounds, per the New York Times: a video of Biden on The View Wednesday morning, in which he consoled Meghan McCain as they talked about the aggressive brain cancer both her dad, Sen. John McCain, and Biden's son, the late Beau Biden, were struck by. After an emotional McCain confessed to Biden she couldn't get through his book on Beau's life and his battle with glioblastoma, Biden took her hand and said to her: "One of the things that gave Beau courage, my word, was John." He then discussed recent breakthroughs in dealing with the cancer and told her that "if anybody can make it," it was the senator. "You gotta maintain hope." Among the online reaction to the segment, which can be viewed here, was a tweet from John McCain: "Thank you @JoeBiden & the entire Biden family for serving as an example & source of strength for my own family."