Spotlight: Calculations behind Trump's support for controversial Moore

Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-22 13:44:29|Editor: pengying
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WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday voiced his support for Alabama Senate Republican candidate Roy Moore, a bombastic evangelical Christian who has been accused of serious sexual misconduct by at least nine women but denied all of them.

"We don't need a liberal person in there, a Democrat," Trump told reporters in the White House, calling Moore's Democratic rival Doug Jones "terrible" on the issues of crime fighting, border control and the military build-up.

As for the accusations against Moore, including molesting a 14-year-old girl and sexually assaulting another teenager when he was in his 30s, Trump said: "Roy Moore denies it -- that's all I can say."

"He totally denies it. He says it didn't happen," Trump said, avoiding making clear whether he believes it or not.

The president did not rule out a possible campaign stop with Moore. He told reporters: "I'll be letting you know next week."

"It's the general consensus that Moore and his policies are better than a Democrat. This makes it about policy and not the sexual abuse allegations," a White House source told CNN, saying Trump knows the Republicans cannot afford to lose even one vote in the Senate. Republicans currently hold a slim 52-48 majority in the upper house.

Moore and Jones are now almost neck and neck in the Senate race in this traditional deep red state, according to the Raycom News Network poll released Tuesday. Forty-seven percent of Alabama voters back Moore, while Jones receives 45 percent of the votes. The poll surveyed some 3,000 likely voters in the state with a margin of error of two percentage points.

Much more respondents (45 percent vs 34 percent) believe some or all of the allegations against Moore are true. However, 21 percent of these people said they will still vote for him.

Moore has been under fire since The Washington Post reported earlier this month that he initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32.

The scandal was quickly piled up as at least eight other women also came forward in the past two weeks to accuse Moore of inappropriate sexual advances that happened when they were teenagers.

More than a dozen Senate Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have urged Moore to step aside. The campaign arm for Senate Republicans and the Republican National Committee have also severed ties with Moore.

However, Moore, a former chief justice of the Alabama state Supreme Court, has dismissed all the allegations and refused to withdraw from the Dec. 12 special election.

Moore was twice ousted as Alabama's chief justice for disregarding court orders, first in refusing to remove a Ten Commandments statue he commissioned for state grounds and later in ignoring the federal Supreme Court's legalization of gay marriage.

During his campaign, the former judge ran as an unabashed opponent of the Washington establishment, making clear he'll be anything but the safe "yes" vote for the Republican lawmakers' agenda led by McConnell.

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