Orangutan pursuing sexual relations with Sex offenders?

Trump throws Roy Moore a lifeline

The president breaks with other D.C. Republicans who’ve said they believe women who accused the Senate candidate of pursuing sexual relations with teenagers.

By DANIEL STRAUSS

President Donald Trump appeared to accept Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore's denials of allegations of sexual misconduct on Tuesday and slammed the Democratic nominee in the special election, former prosecutor Doug Jones, as "soft on crime."

Trump noted that Moore "totally denies" the allegations leveled by several women that Moore assaulted or pursued them when they were teenagers — and suggested, like some Moore supporters, that the accusations came out at a suspicious time.

"I do have to say, 40 years is a long time," Trump said, referring to the allegations, which date back to the 1970s. "He has run eight races, and this has never come up."

That contrasts with other Republicans — including top Senate leaders, who have threatened to expel Moore if he wins the Dec. 12 special election — who have said explictly that they believe Moore's accusers.

Trump also attacked Jones — just as the Democrat is ratcheting up his campaign offensive against Moore, seizing on the assault and harassment charges more explicitly than he has in the past and using Trump's own daughter to attack Moore.

"We don't need a liberal person in there, a Democrat," Trump said Tuesday before leaving the White House for the Thanksgiving holiday. "Jones — I've looked at his record. It's terrible on crime. It's terrible on the border. It's terrible on the military."

Jones' campaign has begun airing two new television ads aimed at winning over Republicans who could be persuaded to cross over and vote for the Democrat. One ad, called "Voices," began airing Monday night and highlights Ivanka Trump, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), and Attorney General Jeff Sessions saying they have no reason to doubt the accusations of a number of women who have accused Moore of pursuing them romantically while he was in his 30s.

"On Roy Moore's disturbing actions, Ivanka Trump says, 'There's a special place in hell for people who prey on children, and I have no reason to doubt the victims' accounts,'" the narrator in the 30-second ad says. "Jeff Sessions says, 'I have no reason to doubt these young women.' And Richard Shelby says he will 'absolutely not' vote for Roy Moore. Conservative voices, putting children and women over party; doing what's right."

The new ad marks a shift in how the Jones campaign has sought to handle the ongoing accusations about Moore from an increasing number of Alabama women. In the immediate aftermath of the first allegations reported by The Washington Post, Jones and his campaign dodged the media, hoping that the spotlight on Moore would drive national and local Republicans away from the former state Supreme Court justice and toward Jones. But with three weeks to go until the Dec. 12 vote, Jones is ramping up his efforts to make the allegations the centerpiece of the special election.

Some polls have started to show Jones leading Moore, but Democrats say now is the time for him to be as active as possible and leverage the Republican divide over supporting Moore.

"Ivanka Trump, and people like that — they're validators to a certain segment of the vote," said Alabama state Rep. Anthony Daniels, a Democrat. "[H]aving validators and individuals that they probably trust make these type of comments is probably helpful in the race."

Since the allegations against Moore, Jones has surged in most public polls of the race. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which had hoped to push Moore out of the race, commissioned a poll that showed Jones with a 12-point lead over Moore.

Jones also has a financial advantage. The Democrat has outspent Moore on television advertising by a 14-to-1 margin. While Moore has lost support of top Senate Republicans, Jones has continued to benefit from Democratic senators sending out fundraising pitches for his campaign. NBC News reported last week that Jones was raising as much as $250,000 per day since the first accusations against Moore.

Support from Trump — who is popular among Alabama Republicans — could boost Moore, but the president declined to say whether he would campaign for the GOP nominee before the Dec. 12 special election.

"I'll be letting you know next week," Trump answered when asked if he would campaign for Moore. "But I can tell you: You don't need somebody who's soft on crime, like Jones."

Trump's attacks on Jones counter another appeal the Democrat is making to some Republican voters. His campaign has begun airing another 30-second spot noting that he was confirmed as a U.S. attorney by a Republican-controlled Senate that included both Sessions and Shelby — and then went on to prosecute Ku Klux Klansmen responsible for the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

"Doug Jones got justice for Alabama: Prosecuting the Klansmen who bombed a black church, taking on the health care companies and prosecuting executives for ripping off consumers," the narrator in that ad says. "Doug Jones: Rising above the politics to defend the Constitution, work across party lines and get things done."

As with previous ads, neither of the two new spots released this week mentions that Jones is a Democrat — a fact that highlights that a Democratic win is hardly assured in deep-red Alabama.

Jones' campaign is hoping to attract both Republican and Democratic voters near key Alabama cities this week. The campaign is in Huntsville on Tuesday, Birmingham on Wednesday, likely in South Alabama on Friday and probably will be at the annual Alabama-Auburn "Iron Bowl" football game on Saturday, according to Jones' campaign.

Moore's campaign, meanwhile, has aimed to frame the race as a fight between him and an alliance of the national press and establishment Republicans, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Cory Gardner of Colorado. The campaign's fundraising pitches rarely mention Jones and instead warn about McConnell or an "Obama-Clinton Machine" fighting to stop him from winning the race. On Monday, the campaign sent out multiple emails to supporters saying it had evidence that "completely bust" the accusations of Beverly Young Nelson, one of the accusers who said Moore tried to sexually assault her.

In Montgomery on Tuesday afternoon, Moore's campaign held another news conference in which spokespeople disputed some of the allegations and read a statement from a longtime Gadsden Mall employee denying that Moore had been banned from the mall for trying to pick up teenagers, contrary to previous reports.

Dean Young, a Moore adviser and former congressional candidate, warned that McConnell and other establishment Republicans were trying to sell "a bill of goods" against Moore.

"Are we that gullible? The answer's no," Young said at the news conference, also disputing a recent Fox News poll that showed Jones ahead of Moore by 8 percentage points. "Fox News could put out their fake polls, and everybody else can, too. But he's still winning, and he's never been losing because the people of Alabama don't go for what y'all are trying to sell."

But while Moore is on his heels, Daniels, the Democratic state representative, said Jones should keep the heat on his opponent.

"Why would you play defense? You play offense," Daniels said.