HUD Secretary Ben Carson “issued a statement on Friday supporting Roy Moore’s candidacy for the Republican Senate nomination in Alabama, breaking with President Trump’s endorsement of the establishment-backed incumbent Sen. Luther Strange,” the Washington Post reports.
“The extraordinary endorsement in Tuesday’s primary runoff election comes just hours before Trump is set to arrive in Alabama to campaign for Strange.”
The Washington Post runs a must-read profile of Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R):
“The central argument of Moore’s campaign is that removing the sovereignty of a Christian God from the functions of government is an act of apostasy, an affront to the biblical savior as well as the Constitution. Among the prices he says this country has paid for denying God’s supremacy: the high murder rate in Chicago, crime on the streets of Washington, child abuse, rape and sodomy. It’s a crisis he hopes to address next year from the floor of the Senate.”
“You wonder why we’re having shootings, and killings here in 2017? Because we’ve asked for it. We’ve taken God out of everything. We’ve taken prayer out of school, we’ve taken prayer out of council meetings.”
— Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R), quoted by CNN.
“Now we have blacks and whites fighting, reds and yellows fighting, Democrats and Republicans fighting, men and women fighting. What’s going to unite us? What’s going to bring us back together? A president? A Congress? No. It’s going to be God.”
— Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R), quoted by The Hill.
Politico: “Three words are striking fear in Senate Republicans these days: ‘Senator Roy Moore.’ The bomb-throwing former Alabama Supreme Court justice has vaulted to a hefty lead in Alabama’s Senate special election, lambasting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell every step of the way. A Moore victory promises to make McConnell’s tenuous 52-seat majority even more precarious, allies of the majority leader warn, potentially imperiling tax reform, raising the risk of default on the nation’s debt or even derailing routine Senate business.”
First Read: “So given those past failures, why is Moore likely headed for success in two weeks? Here’s a theory: In the Trump Era, it’s much easier for a controversial (and well-known) figure to win a GOP primary than during the Bush Era (when “compassionate conservatism” was the mantra) or even the Tea Party Era (when fiscal matters often overshadowed social ones).”
“Yes, opponent Luther Strange has his own set of problems stemming from his appointment to the job by an embattled governor, and Moore is benefitting from a set of political crosswinds in the state that are pretty unique. But his rise still shows that, in the Trump Era, the parameters of what’s politically palatable in the Republican Party aren’t where they used to be.”
Asked by WVNN radio host Dale Jackson about President Trump’s push to end DACA protection for so-called Dreamers, Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R) was clearly confused:
JACKSON: “You’re not aware of what Dreamers are?”
MOORE: “No.”
JACKSON: “This is a big issue in the immigration debate…”
MOORE: “Why don’t you tell me what it is Dale and quit beating around and tell me what it is.”
JACKSON: “I’m in the process of doing that Judge Moore.”
MOORE: “OK.”
Steve Bannon is breaking from President Trump in the closely-watched Alabama Senate special election, Politico reports.
“During a closed-door meeting with powerful conservatives in Washington last week, Bannon declared that he’s supporting former state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore over Trump-endorsed incumbent Sen. Luther Strange, according to two people who were present. Bannon, who just over a week ago left the White House to rejoin the conservative website Breitbart News, said that he is looking to activate the conservative base to Moore’s cause.”
Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, “has cast doubt on former President Obama’s citizenship repeatedly and as recently as December 2016, fueling the debunked ‘birther’ movement that sought to delegitimize Obama’s presidency,” CNN reports.
“Moore, who started questioning the legitimacy of Obama’s citizenship back in 2008, last year told a meeting of the Constitution Party that he personally did not believe Obama was a natural-born citizen.”
When The Guardian told Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R) that Ronald Reagan once called Russia “the focus of evil in the modern world,” Moore replied, “You could say that very well about America, couldn’t you?”
He added: “We promote a lot of bad things,” specifically citing same-sex marriage.
When the reporter suggested that’s an argument Vladimir Putin makes, Moore said, “Well, then maybe Putin is right. Maybe he’s more akin to me than I know.”
Roy Moore (R) announced he is resigning from his position as the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court to run in the special election for U.S. Senate, the Birmingham News reports.
Said Moore: “My position has always been God first, family then country. I share the vision of President Donald Trump to make America great again. We can make America great again, we’ve got to make America good again.”
Moore said he has submitted his papers to resign from the state supreme court, a position he was suspended from for the remainder of his term.
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R) has interviewed 11 candidates as possible replacements for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), including suspended Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, the Montgomery Advertiser reports.
Said Moore: “I’d be honored to accept an appointment to the U.S. Senate if it was offered.”
“Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore already lost his job once. Now he’s at risk of losing it again,” the Washington Post reports.
“A state commission on Friday suspended Moore from the bench, alleging that the top-ranking state judicial official disregarded “clear law” this year when he instructed state judges to ignore the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling last summer that established nationwide same-sex marriage rights.”
“Just who do they think they are when one person can reverse 200-and-something years of precedent in our country and thousands of years of precedent in western civilization?”
— Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore (R), quoted by the Associated Press, on the Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.
“I’ve had many friends who are homosexual.”
— Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, interviewed by Bloomberg, adding that he would never attend a gay wedding.