Senior Alabama GOP senator Richard Shelby told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he couldn’t vote for accused child molester Roy Moore and wrote in a candidate.
Said Shelby: “I didn’t vote for Roy Moore. But I wrote in a distinguished Republican name. And I think a lot of people could do that… There’s a time, we call it a tipping point, and I think so many accusations, so many cuts, so many drip, drip, drip. When it got to the 14-year-old story, that was enough for me. I said, I can’t vote for Roy Moore…I think the women are believable. I have no reason not to believe them, just like the Attorney General Sessions said. He had no reason not to believe the women. They were credible. But I wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened. But there’s a lot of stories there, a lot of smoke. Gotta to be some fire somewhere.”
Donald Trump recorded a robocall for Moore urging Alabama voters to support the child molester.
Said Trump: “We need Roy voting for us and stopping illegal immigration and crime, rebuilding a stronger military and protecting the Second Amendment and our pro-life values,” Trump’s voice is heard saying in a robocall obtained for ABC News. “But if Alabama elects liberal Democrat Doug Jones, all of our progress will be stopped full…Roy Moore is the guy we need to pass our ‘Make America Great Again’ agenda,”
President Obama recorded a robocall urging voters to support Moore’s Democratic opponent Doug Jones, CNN reports:
“This one’s serious,” Obama says in the call. “You can’t sit it out.”
Two Democratic officials familiar with the Alabama race tell CNN that Obama recorded the phone message in recent days, at the very time Trump stepped up his own involvement in the campaign with a recorded message. Obama does not mention Moore by name.
“Doug Jones is a fighter for equality, for progress,” Obama says. “Doug will be our champion for justice. So get out and vote, Alabama.”
Moore issued a final denial on ultraconservative show The Voice of Alabama Politics: “I did not know them. I had no encounter with them. I never molested anyone, and for them to say that, I don’t know why they’re saying it, but it’s not true.”
