The White House on Thursday said President Donald Trump thinks the allegations eight women have made about sexual misconduct by Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore are “very troubling.”
“The President believes that these allegations are very troubling and should be taken seriously,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during a press briefing.
She stopped short of calling for Moore to drop out, saying that Trump “thinks that the people of Alabama should make the decision on who their next senator should be.”
Gena Richardson on Wednesday night said that Moore asked her out several times in 1977, the year she turned 18. Richardson told the Washington Post that when she acquiesced and went on a date with him, Moore gave her an unwanted, “forceful” kiss.
Richardson was the eighth woman to come forward accusing Moore of making improper sexual advances. One, Beverly Young Nelson, said Moore sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager, and another, Leigh Corfman, said Moore initiated a sexual encounter with her when she was 14 years old.
Trump in 2016 was considerably more dismissive of allegations of sexual misconduct—forcible kissing, groping and ogling—that multiple women made against him.
