Trump barely mentions Moore in speech
Highlights agenda near Alabama line
His Florida audience may have expected a stump speech for embattled Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore. Instead President Donald Trump promoted his America-first agenda.
He pledged during a speech Friday in Pensacola to pursue American energy dominance, promised to “make it very difficult” for immigrants to enter the country, criticized the Paris Climate Accord, decried sanctuary cities, attacked congressional Democrats, and bragged about his ability to draw a crowd.
It was a full 50 minutes into Mr. Trump’s speech before he uttered the name “Roy Moore” and then only after prompting from the audience.
“This guy’s screaming, ‘ We want Roy Moore.’ He’s right,” the president said before challenging the credibility of a women who has accused Mr. Moore of sexual assault, Beverly Nelson, who had produced a high school yearbook to refute Mr. Moore’s claim that he didn’t know her.
It contained a note and signature from Mr. Moore that some Republicans now call fraudulent after Ms. Nelson revealed Friday that she had added the date and
location — a restaurant where she worked in high school.
“Did you see what happened today?” Mr. Trump asked the crowd. “There was a little mistake she made. She started writing things in the yearbook.”
Mr. Trump hasn’t said whether he believes Ms. Nelson and other accusers, only that it’s more important to have a reliable conservative vote in the Senate. Mr. Moore is running against Democrat Doug Jones in Tuesday’s election.
“We need someone in that Senate seat who will vote for our make-America-great agenda,” which involves strengthening borders, building a wall at the Mexican border, strengthening the military, enforcing criminal law, protecting gun rights, creating jobs and appointing conservative judges to the Supreme Court, he said.
“So go out and vote for Roy Moore. Do it. Do it,” Mr. Trump said, uttering the candidate’s name for the second and last time during a speech that lasted 76 minutes.
White House spokesman Raj Shah said the president’s endorsement had to do with policy issues, not with allegations of misconduct.
“He doesn’t want to see Alabama elect a Nancy Pelosi-Chuck Schumer puppet who’s going to be wrong on the issues and not support the agenda,” Mr. Shah said earlier Friday.
He did not directly answer questions about whether the president believes the women who have accused Mr. Moore of sexual misconduct decades ago when they were teenagers.
“We find these allegations to be troubling and concerning, and they should be taken seriously,” but Mr. Moore’s denials also should be taken into account, Mr. Shah said.
Mr. Trump delivered his speech about 25 miles from the Alabama border.
“It’s not that he’s not going to Alabama. It’s that he’s going to Pensacola. Pensacola is Trump country,” Mr. Shah said earlier Friday.
Fifty-eight percent of voters in Escambia County, where Pensacola is located, cast presidential ballots for Mr. Trump, but 20 miles away just across the border in Baldwin County, Ala., even more did: nearly 77.5 percent.
The crowd was full of Alabamans, who expected to hear about Mr. Moore. Instead, they mostly heard about sanctuary cities, the president’s dislike of Hillary Clinton, his administration’s record of job growth and its plans to cut taxes and dismantle the “Obamacare nightmare.” Mr. Trump covered a lot of familiar territory by claiming a landslide electoral victory, characterizing immigrants as violent criminals, inspiring chants of “Lock her up!,” and pandering to minorities.
“Any Hispanics here? They’re great,” he said. And later, as he noticed a group of supporters with signs, “’Blacks for Trump.’ I love you.”
Mr. Trump bounced back and forth between substantive policy and insults tossed at those he views as enemies including Ms. Clinton, Capitol Democrats and the news media.
He told the crowd that Republicans are working out the differences between House and Senate tax reform plans, and promised the deal would include eliminating a penalty for people who don’t buy health insurance.
“We’re getting rid of the individual mandate, the individual mandate, where you pay a lot of money for the privilege of not having to have insurance or health care. So you pay for the privileges of not getting taken care of,” he said. “We’re going to repeal it.”
He also ticked off what he called accomplishments under his watch, including 228,000 jobs created last month, approval of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, and putting coal miners back to work.
“That was just the beginning,” Mr. Trump said.
“With American pride surging in our hearts and American courage swelling in our souls, I say these words tonight: Together we will indeed make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America safe again,” he said. “We will make America great again.”