White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Thursday that President Trump does not intend to ask Roy Moore to withdraw from the Alabama Senate race, despite viewing the sexual assault allegations against him as “very troubling.”
Trump has come under fire for declining to comment on the scandal involving Moore. Instead, he has dispatched his press secretary and daughter to make public statements about the GOP candidate’s actions.
“The president believes that these allegations are very troubling and should be taken seriously and he thinks that the people of Alabama should make a decision about who their senator should be,” Sanders told reporters at the daily briefing, declining to say why Trump himself has yet to address the controversy.
Sanders said Trump supported the Republican National Committee’s decision on Tuesday to pull out of a fundraising agreement with Moore’s campaign.
But she refused to confirm whether the president’s endorsement of Moore still stands.
“[He] believes this is a decision for the people of Alabama to make,” Sanders said.
Moore, who has repeatedly denied the claims against him, accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday of colluding with Democrats and The Washington Post “to steal this election” from Alabama voters.
“As you know, the Washington Post has brought some scurrilous, false charges… which I have emphatically denied time and time again,” Moore told his supporters.
Sanders declined to say whether Trump would cast his ballot for Moore, whom he endorsed after Alabama’s September GOP primary, in which the former judge defeated incumbent Sen. Luther Strange.
Trump had backed Strange in the primary.
“The president is not a voter in Alabama,” Sanders said.
