Trump supports Moore despite teen sex scandal
‘He totally denies it,’ president says of the GOP Senate hopeful.
WASHINGTON — President Trump backed Roy Moore on Tuesday, breaking with national Republican leaders and reaffirming his support nearly two weeks after the Senate candidate from Alabama was accused of sexual advances against teenage girls years ago.
“He totally denies it. He says it didn’t happen,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House to spend Thanksgiving at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. “I do have to say, 40 years is a long time.”
The president’s statements of doubt about Moore’s accusers, and his suggestion that he might campaign for Moore, came days after many GOP leaders broke with the nominee. The Republican National Committee withdrew support last week, following Senate Republicans’ campaign committee. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan have called on Moore to step aside.
“I believe the women, yes,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky over a week ago. He said Moore is “obviously not fit to be in the Senate,” suggesting that Senate Republicans could refuse to seat Moore or expel him.
“These allegations are credible,” Ryan said, adding, “He should step aside.”
Two prominent Alabama Republicans — Jeff Sessions, who gave up the seat in contention to become attorney general, and longtime Sen. Richard C. Shelby — said they believed the accusers. Shelby said he would “absolutely not” vote for Moore, but would write in some Republican’s name.
McConnell had expressed hope while Trump was in Asia this month that the president, upon his return, would press Moore to leave the race, and the president indicated he would address the matter. But for the last week he dodged reporters’ questions, reflecting the awkwardness of his own history of alleged sexual misbehavior.
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said repeatedly that Alabama voters should decide Moore’s fate.
With his long-awaited comments Tuesday, Trump echoed some Moore supporters, including Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who put partisan concerns above the character issues surrounding Moore. They argue that a GOP senator is needed to support Trump’s agenda and judicial nominees.
Polls show Moore in a tight race with Democrat Doug Jones ahead of the Dec. 12 special election, but the Republican has lost significant ground in the solidly conservative state.
“I can tell you one thing for sure. We don’t need a liberal person in there, a Democrat — Jones,” Trump said. “I’ve looked at his record. It’s terrible on crime. It’s terrible on the border. It’s terrible on the military.”
Trump left the door open for campaigning for Moore. “I’ll be letting you know next week,” he said.
Moore has strong backing from some of the anti-establishment Republicans who form Trump’s political base. Breitbart, the news site controlled by his former advisor Stephen K. Bannon, sent reporters to Alabama to try to discredit the Washington Post’s reporting on allegations of Moore’s advances on teenage girls when he was an attorney in his early 30s. Breitbart’s attempts were not successful.
Trump’s comments could play a major role in the Senate election, said Carl Grafton, an emeritus political scientist at Auburn University at Montgomery.
“When I got into the barber shop ... it is 100% proTrump and has been since about an hour after he was elected,” Grafton said.
He added of Trump: “Everyone has their qualifiers when they talk about him — how his language is not so so good, or this that or the other — but he’s as popular as Reagan was” among white middle-class and working-class voters.
Trump’s backing “provides people who don’t like Roy Moore, for whatever reason, an excuse to vote for him,” Grafton said.
K.B. Forbes, a GOP strategist in Birmingham who is running an anti-Moore PAC, Save Alabama Now, said, “It is an abomination, in that we’re putting politics over principle.”
“Roy Moore is an alleged pedophile who targeted teenage girls and he will become the poster child for all the opponents of the Republican Party,” Forbes added.
The issue of sexual misconduct, with recent complaints against dozens of well-known men in business, entertainment, the media and politics, has revived allegations against Trump that nearly derailed his campaign last year, when more than a dozen women accused him of sexually inappropriate behavior.
Despite Trump’s choice to believe Moore’s denials over the accusations of multiple women, the president sought to be sympathetic to women generally amid the national debate over sexual harassment.
“Women are very special,” he 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.”
Trump had previously criticized Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, a Democrat, who was accused of groping a woman during a 2006 USO tour and grabbing a woman’s buttocks in 2010 at the Minnesota State Fair.