Hopeful’s aide in vile abort slam
WHILE PRESIDENT Trump and the Republican National Committee are now squarely in Roy Moore’s corner, others on the right are in no rush to support the accused sexual predator.
With a week to go until the Alabama special election Dec. 12, the contentious race is fracturing the GOP even further as a super PAC linked to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stays out of the action.
That PAC said Tuesday it would echo the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s call and withhold support for Moore.
“We are following the NRSC’s lead in Alabama,” a spokesman for the Senate Leadership Fund told CNN.
The super PAC spent millions against Moore during the primary ahead of next week’s special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Moore has denied allegations that he pursued sexual relationships with teenage girls while he was in his 30s. The 70-year-old firebrand refused to drop out of the race and has maintained a lead over Democratic opponent Doug Jones (photo) in recent polls.
Trump, who faces his own groping accusations, continued to praise Moore on Tuesday, making clear that party and a coveted seat in a chamber with a slim margin are more important than accusations of predatory behavior.
“I think he’s going to do very well,” the President said before a working lunch with Republicans. “We do not want to have a liberal Democrat in Alabama.”
For weeks, Trump dodged questions about the allegations against Moore as nine women came forward with lurid tales of being sexually harassed by the former prosecutor and judge.
“We said the allegations are concerning,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday afternoon. “If true, he should step aside. We don’t have a way to validate that. That’s something for the people of Alabama to decide.”
The RNC, which severed ties with the candidate weeks ago as many members called on Moore to drop out of the race, reversed course and sent him a check for $50,000 following Trump’s endorsement, according to a reporter for The Associated Press.
But the party’s flip-flop was not echoed by McConnell or the Senate Leadership Fund.
“There’s been no change of heart. I had hoped earlier he would withdraw as a candidate. That obviously is not going to happen,” McConnell said Tuesday, adding that Moore would almost immediately face the Senate Ethics Committee.
Some experts said whether Moore wins or not, the GOP loses.
“If (Republicans) lose, the lesson is, you nominate a far-right wing nutcase candidate, you’re going to lose the seat,” veteran GOP pollster Whit Ayres told McClatchy News Service. “If he wins, then the lesson is, you nominate a far-right-wing nutcase candidate, then it puts the party in an impossible situation where you’ve got someone deemed not fit to serve in the body to which he’s been elected.”
Matthew Dowd, a pollster who worked for former President George W. Bush, blasted his fellow Republicans.
“After going all in for Roy Moore, the President, the White House, the GOP, and any of their enablers has zero moral authority to talk about Weinstein, Franken, Conyers, etc.,” he tweeted. “Deplorable.”
At an Alabama rally, former White House adviser Stephen Bannon headlined for Moore on Tuesday night, the right-winger took pot shots at 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who had tweeted criticism of Moore’s integrity and honor.
Moore has “more honor and integrity in a pinkie finger than your family has in its whole DNA,” Bannon said, as he ripped Romney for his religious deferment to avoid serving Vietnam — apparently forgetting that President Trump also got a deferment for bad feet. “Country over Party,” the senator wrote on the check and the post. Jones later thanked Flake for his donation. “Thanks Jeff. I hope others will donate too!” the candidate wrote. Flake, who is not seeking reelection in 2018, previously tweeted that: “A Roy Moore victory is no victory for the GOP and the nation.” Multiple women have accused Moore of sexually assaulting them when they were teenagers. President Trump officially endorsed him on Monday. Alabama’s special election is Dec. 12. A SPOKESWOMAN for Roy Moore implied Tuesday that his Democratic opponent wanted to kill a CNN anchor’s unborn baby.
Janet Porter (photo) dismissed the numerous allegations of sexual assault and child molestation against the scandalplagued Republican — and warned host Poppy Harlow about Democrat Doug Jones.