President Trump broke his silence on Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore on Tuesday, telling reporters at the White House that a Democrat should not win the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and offering his strongest support yet of the Republican nominee since women accused Moore of pursuing inappropriate relationships with underage teens.
“We don’t need a liberal person in there, a Democrat — [Doug] Jones,” Trump said of the Democratic candidate in the race as he left the White House on Tuesday for Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate. “I’ve looked at his record. It’s terrible on crime. It’s terrible on the border. It’s terrible on the military. I can tell you for a fact, we do not need somebody that’s going to be bad on crime, bad on borders, bad with the military, bad for the Second Amendment.”
Trump has declined to comment on Moore this week as the controversy surrounding his past conduct has prompted most elected Republicans nationally to call for Moore to exit the Senate race. Trump endorsed appointed incumbent Sen. Luther Strange in the Republican primary. Moore beat Strange and now faces Jones in the general election.
But the president seemingly sided with Moore on Tuesday when he said he believed the former state supreme court judge’s denials.
“Forty years is a long time. He’s run eight races, and this has never come up,” Trump said of the allegations leveled against Moore by at least eight women.
“All you can do is, you have to do what you have to do. [Moore] totally denies it,” Trump said.
Trump’s stance on the Alabama Senate race has been in question ever since the first allegations against Moore were reported. The story broke while the president was on trip to Asia. The White House issued a statement at the time saying Moore should step aside if the accusations were true but taking no position on their veracity.
Since then, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders has said that Trump believes it should be left up to the voters in Alabama.
“The president certainly finds the allegations extremely troubling,” she said at a briefing last week. “As I stated yesterday, he feels like it’s up to the governor and the state — the people in the state of Alabama to make a determination on whether or not they delay that election or whether or not they support and vote for Roy Moore.”
The first sign that the White House might break with Republican congressional leaders on Moore came when Kellyanne Conway criticized his Democratic opponent in an interview.
“Doug Jones in Alabama, folks, don’t be fooled. He will be a vote against tax cuts. He is weak on crime. Weak on borders. He’s strong on raising your taxes. He is terrible for property owners,” Conway said during an interview on Fox News. “I just want everybody to know Doug Jones, nobody ever says his name and pretends he is some kind of conservative Democrat in Alabama. And he’s not.”
While Trump did not support Moore during the primary, many of his strongest supporters did. This includes former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who has stood by Moore since the allegations of inappropriate behavior first surfaced. Bannon compared the reports to the “Access Hollywood” tape released before the presidential election showing Trump, who was accused of sexual harassment during the campaign but denied the charges, engaging in lewd talk about women and his sexual exploits.
Republicans have had difficulty passing big-ticket legislative items despite their 52-48 majority in the Senate. A Jones win would erode their majority even further and boost Democratic candidate recruitment ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
The questions about Moore’s past come as powerful men from Hollywood to Washington have faced allegations of sexual misconduct. The torrent began with a slate of accusations involving movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, but has spread to the political world with Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., among the latest accused.
Although Trump repeated Moore’s denials of inappropriate behavior, he did express support for releasing the names of lawmakers who settled sexual harassment claims and said that the climate of increased scrutiny was a good thing.
“Women are very special,” Trump said. “I think it’s a very special time, a lot of things are coming out and I think that’s good for our society and I think it’s very very good for women and I’m very happy.”
Alabama voters will cast their ballots on Dec. 12.
