Donald Trump has thrown his full support behind Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race, tweeting his endorsement before calling the controversial candidate to say: “Go get ’em, Roy!”
Trump tweeted early on Monday: “Democrats refusal to give even one vote for massive tax cuts is why we need Republican Roy Moore to win in Alabama. We need his vote on stopping crime, illegal immigration, Border Wall, Military, Pro Life, V.A., Judges 2nd Amendment and more. No to Jones, a Pelosi/Schumer Puppet!”
Referring again to the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, the president added: “Putting Pelosi/Schumer Liberal Puppet Jones into office in Alabama would hurt our great Republican Agenda of low on taxes, tough on crime, strong on military and borders...& so much more.”
Quick GuideGay bans and praise for Putin: the world according to Roy Moore
Show
Homosexuality should be illegal
In 2005, Moore said: “Homosexual conduct should be illegal.” In an interview televised on C-Span, Moore added: “It is immoral. It is defined by the law as detestable.” During a debate in September 2017, he went out of his way to bemoan the fact that “sodomy [and] sexual perversion sweep the land”.
September 11 attacks as divine punishment
In a speech in February, Moore appeared to suggest that the terrorist attacks of September 11 were the result of divine retribution against the United States and prophesized in the Book of Isaiah. In comments first reported by CNN, Moore quoted Isaiah 30:12-13, saying: “Because you have despised His word and trust in perverseness and oppression, and say thereon ... therefore this iniquity will be to you as a breach ready to fall, swell out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instance.” Moore then noted: “Sounds a little bit like the Pentagon, whose breaking came suddenly at an instance, doesn’t it?” He added: “If you think that’s coincidence, if you go to verse 25: ‘There should be up on every high mountain and upon every hill, rivers and streams of water in the day of the great slaughter when the towers will fall.’"
Praise for Putin
In an interview with the Guardian in August, Moore praised Putin for his views on gay rights. “Maybe Putin is right. Maybe he’s more akin to me than I know.” The comments came after Moore suggested the United States could be described as “the focus of evil in the world” because “we promote a lot of bad things”. Moore specifically named gay marriage as one of those “bad things”.
'Reds and yellows’
At a rally earlier in September, Moore talked about “reds and yellows fighting” while discussing racial division in the United States. Moore justified this on Twitter by citing lyrics from the song Jesus Loves the Little Children. He wrote “Red, yellow, black and white they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world. This is the Gospel.”
Tracking livestock is communism
In 2006, Moore condemned a proposal for a national ID system for animals as “more identifiable with communism than free enterprise”. The proposal received attention after a cow in Alabama had been diagnosed with mad cow disease. Moore, who was then running for governor, was skeptical that the outbreak was real. Instead, Moore suggested it was a ruse intended to promote the tracking system.
Moore has lost the backing of many top Republicans since the Washington Post first reported allegations of sexual misconduct with young women decades ago. Trump praised him in recent weeks but had not formally backed him.
Several hours after his tweets, Trump called Moore. The call was announced by the Alabama Republican’s wife on Facebook. “Judge Moore just got off the phone with President Trump,” Kayla Moore wrote. “We have his full support! Thank you Mr President! Let’s MAGA!”
The Moore campaign confirmed to the Guardian that the conversation had taken place. In a follow-up statement, a spokesperson said: “President Trump called Judge Moore a ‘fighter’ and expressed his eagerness to have Judge Moore fighting for his agenda in Washington. The president wrapped up the call with a ‘Go get ’em, Roy!’”
The White House later issued a statement in which a spokesman, Raj Shah, said: “The president had a positive call with Judge Roy Moore during which they discussed the state of the Alabama Senate race and the president endorsed Judge Moore’s campaign.”
The White House has said the president has no plans to make campaign appearances with Moore but he has agreed to headline a campaign-style rally in Pensacola, Florida, less than 20 miles from the Alabama border, just four days before the vote.
The special election, to fill the seat vacated by Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, will take place on Tuesday 12 December.
Trump supported Luther Strange, the appointed incumbent, in the primary but Strange was beaten by Moore, a controversial hardline conservative who had the backing of Steve Bannon, Trump’s former senior White House strategist, who is mounting a challenge to the party establishment. Bannon is due to hold a rally with Moore on Tuesday.
Moore has defied calls to step down over the allegations by a number of women, one of whom alleges he initiated sexual contact with her when she was 14 and he was in his 30s. Moore denies all the allegations and said last week they were the result of a conspiracy that included “lesbians, gays, bisexuals and socialists”.
Even before the allegations, Moore was a controversial figure. He has suggested that “homosexual conduct” should be criminalized and was twice removed as chief justice of the Alabama supreme court for defying federal court orders.
On Monday morning, he tweeted: “Thankful for President Trump’s support. The America First agenda will #MAGA. Can’t wait to help him #DrainTheSwamp.”
The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who has said he believes Moore’s accusers, has now taken a slightly different position.
“I think that at this point, we’re just going to let the people of Alabama make their decision,” McConnell told the Associated Press on Sunday, adding that he believed the Senate ethics committee would take up an investigation if Moore were elected.
“The ethics committee will have to consider the matters that have been litigated in the campaign should that particular candidate win,” McConnell said on ABC’s This Week. “And I’m confident they’ll come up with the right conclusion.”
However, some Republicans continued to express their outrage over Moore. The 2012 Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, a frequent Trump critic, tweeted on Monday afternoon: “Roy Moore in the US Senate would be a stain on the GOP and on the nation. Leigh Corfman and other victims are courageous heroes. No vote, no majority is worth losing our honor, our integrity.”
Moore’s Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, is a prosecutor who helped to convict two Ku Klux Klan members over the 1963 bombing of an African American church in Birmingham in which four young girls were killed.
Moore had fallen to level with or behind Jones in the deep red state, before, observers believe, sexual harassment allegations against the prominent Democrats John Conyers and Al Franken swayed the minds of some voters.
The realclearpolitics.com polling average for the Alabama race now gives Moore a three-point lead.