LIB? NO. ‘PREDATOR’? OK.
Don on accused teen abuser Roy: ‘Well, he denies it’
President Trump on Tuesday offered an implicit endorsement of Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore in his most expansive comments yet on the hotly contested race.
“I can tell you one thing for sure: We don’t need a liberal person in there, a Democrat,” the president said, referring to Doug Jones.
“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 told reporters as he was about to leave the White House for a Thanksgiving vacation at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
Asked about allegations by at least eight women that Moore acted inappropriately with them or sexually assaulted them when they were teens and he was in his 30s, Trump noted that Moore insists the claims are not true.
“Well, he denies it. Look, he denies it. I mean, if you look at what is really going on, and you look at all the things that have happened over the last 48 hours, he totally denies it. He says it didn’t happen,” Trump said.
“And, you know, you have to listen to him also. You’re talking about, he said 40 years ago this did not happen.”
Trump would not say if was going to campaign for Moore.
“I’ll be letting you know next week. But I can tell you, you don’t need somebody who’s soft on crime, like Jones,” he said of the Democrat, who is a former US attorney.
Trump pointed out that the allegations against Moore didn’t surface in any of his other races. “He’s run eight races, and this has never come up. So 40 years is a long time. The women are Trump voters; most of them are Trump voters. All you can do is, you have to do what you have to do. He totally denies it,” he said.
Republicans have a slim 52-48 majority in the Senate. If Jones wins a Dec. 12 special election, that margin would shrink to 51-49. The president called it a positive development that so many women have come forward to talk about sexual harassment and assault they had endured at the hands of powerful men in politics, the media and the entertainment industry.
“Women are very special. I think it’s a very special time because 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 a lot of these things are coming out, and I’m very happy it’s being exposed,” Trump said.
He said lawmakers who have used tax money to pay off victims of sexual harassment or assault should be identified.
California Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier said last week that two lawmakers still in Congress were among those who settled in exchange for secrecy. She would not reveal their names. She said more than $15 million had been paid to silence accusers.
Jones, meanwhile, unveiled a tough new attack ad — quoting Ivanka Trump’s pointed slap at Moore.
“There’s a special place in hell for people who prey on children and I have no reason to doubt the victims’ accounts,” the ad states, using the first daughter’s quote from last week.