This is the latest case of Trump contradicting earlier statements by his staff, including spokespeople, Cabinet members, and his vice president. Just last week, for example, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said that the president found the allegations “extremely troubling” and said, “The president said in his statement earlier this week that, if the allegations are true, then that Roy Moore should step aside. He still firmly believes that.” Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whose elevation created the current special election, has also said, “I have no reason to doubt these young women.”

The president’s comments Tuesday also put him at odds with his daughter, Ivanka Trump, who said recently, “There’s a special place in hell for people who prey on children,” adding, “I’ve yet to see a valid explanation and I have no reason to doubt the victims’ accounts.” (Jones included that remark in a new ad released Tuesday.) Ivanka Trump has repeatedly seen her own views bulldozed by the president.

The comments also put Trump at odds, not for the first time, with the Republican establishment. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has blasted Moore and said he should step down, as have the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Republican National Committee. Several Republican senators have called for expelling Moore, should he be elected. One of the few people who has staunchly backed Moore—after briefly wavering—is Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist and a reflexive opponent of the party mandarins.

Trump’s charge that Jones is weak on crime is doubly ironic. Jones is a former prosecutor who put Klansmen behind bars; his opponent not only was twice removed from the state bench for violating the U.S. Constitution, but in the matter stands accused of committing a crime himself. Additionally, Moore’s judicial record shows that he often dissented from his colleagues in the cases of those accused of sex crimes.

Moore, who has fallen behind Jones in polls since the allegation first began, has flatly denied the accusations against him but has refused to offer specific refutations of any of the women’s accounts, with his campaign instead raging about persecution by the liberal media and Republican establishment. He has said that he did not “generally” date teenage girls, but has not specifically denied having done so, either. One Alabama pastor even praised Moore’s past dating habits, saying, “He did that because there is something about a purity of a young woman, there is something that is good, that’s true, that’s straight and he looked for that.”

On Tuesday, a reporter asked Trump what his message was to women. “Women are very special,” he said. “I think it's a very special time because a lot of things are coming out. And I think that’s good for our society. And I think it’s very, very good for women.”