With votes for the GOP tax bill getting harder to whip, Donald Trump has voiced support for Roy Moore in the race for Alabama’s Senate seat, defending the Republican candidate against charges of sexual misconduct. Previously the president said it should be up to Alabama voters to decide their election between Democratic candidate Doug Jones and Moore, the Republican candidate who has been alleged to have had or pursued relationships with underage women when he was in his 30s, according to The Washington Post.
“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,” said the president. “He says it didn’t happen.”
Stopping short of a full-throated endorsement of Moore—Trump did endorse Moore’s opponent Luther Strange in the Republican primaries—the president said he’d reveal more information about campaigning with the candidate next week.
Regardless of those details, the president was clear in his statement of support for Moore, in light of the possibility of losing Alabama’s Senate seat to the Democrats. “We don’t need a liberal person in there, a Democrat, Jones,” said the president.
The announcement from Trump comes the day after Kellyanne Conway went on Fox News, essentially campaigning for Moore, saying that a vote for Jones would be a vote against the Trump administration’s tax reform. “We want the votes in the Senate to get this tax bill through,” she said.