Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to say whether or not President Donald Trump would vote for Roy Moore if he were an Alabama voter. | Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images White House: Trump thinks Alabama voters should decide if Moore belongs in Senate

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders indicated Thursday that President Donald Trump would not call on Alabama Republican Roy Moore to drop out of his state’s Senate race in the wake of allegations that he initiated sexual or romantic encounters with teenage girls when he was in his 30s.

“The president believes that these allegations are troubling and should be taken seriously, and he thinks that the people of Alabama should make the decision on who their next senator should be,” Sanders said at Thursday’s press briefing.


She reiterated the statement issued by the White House last week that Moore should step aside “if the allegations are true” but refused to outline what it would take for Trump to become convinced of the accusations’ veracity.

Sanders also declined to say whether or not Trump would vote for Moore if he were an Alabama voter and would not commit to following up with reporters on the issue.

Accusations against Moore surfaced late last week when The Washington Post reported that Moore had initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl when he was in his 30s and had dated other high school-aged girls around the same time. Another allegation surfaced this week from a woman who accused Moore of sexually assaulting her when she was 16 and then threatening that nobody would believe her if she were to tell others about the incident.

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The National Republican Senatorial Committee quickly pulled its fundraising agreement with Moore in the wake of the allegations, and the committee’s chairman, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) has said the Senate should expel Moore if he is elected.

The Republican National Committee ended its fundraising agreement with Moore this week, a step that Sanders said Trump supported.

Trump himself is no stranger to allegations of sexual harassment or worse. During last year’s presidential campaign, the president was accused of a range of unwanted sexual advances by 16 women. He denied all the allegations.

A 2005 recording of him discussing in vulgar language how his celebrity allowed him to sexually assault women without consequence was also published by the Post. The president apologized for the language but chalked it up to “locker room talk” that he had never acted on.