The Hill: Trump and McConnell at Odds over Roy Moore

The Associated Press
The Associated Press

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is once again at odds with President Trump. This time over support for embattled Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore.

Alexander Bolton reports in the Hill:

Trump broke more than a week of silence on Tuesday by raising doubt about the allegations of sexual misconduct facing Moore, contradicting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Senate Republicans.

Trump pushed back on a reporter who asked how he felt about electing a “child molester” by noting that Moore “totally denies it.”

Some Alabama voters still remember Republican candidate Steve Windom’s race for lieutenant governor in 1998 when he was accused by a former prostitute of rape and sodomy. The accuser, Melissa Myers Bush, later admitted in court that she accepted money to make false allegations.

Windom won the race despite the false charges, becoming the first Republican lieutenant governor of the state in more than a century.

“Donald Trump and the GOP establishment haven’t been on the same page,” said Jon Gray, a GOP consultant based in Alabama who has polled the Senate race frequently.

Gray says that even though Trump is from New York and has spent a lot of time in Florida, “he really does think like Alabamians think.”

“He gets it,” he added.

While McConnell and other Senate Republicans have been quick to side with the women accusing Moore of misconduct, many Alabama voters are giving him the benefit of the doubt.

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