President Donald Trump jetted to the Florida Panhandle on Friday to rally his supporters in Pensacola, a town that’s less than 15 miles from this month’s political ground zero.
He took to the Christmas-decorated stage to the screams of enthusiastic Trump-lovers in an arena where near-freezing temperatures left the seating areas less than full.
Pensacola shares a media market with Mobile, Alabama, one of a handful of metro areas whose voters will decide the strange U.S. Senate special election between Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones.
Moore stands accused of sexual misconduct by nine different women, including two who say he groped them while they were 14 and 16 years old. He has denied everything.
President Donald Trump took to the Christmas-decorated stage to the screams of enthusiastic Trump-lovers in an arena where near-freezing temperatures left the seating areas less than full
Trump is in Pensacola which shares a media market with Mobile, Alabama, one of a handful of metro areas whose voters will decide the strange U.S. Senate special election between Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones
But Trump has endorsed him anyway, underscoring Moore’s denials and insisting that another Senate Democrat would make passing his agenda far more difficult.
‘LAST thing the Make America Great Again Agenda needs is a Liberal Democrat in Senate where we have so little margin for victory already,’ Trump tweeted Friday morning. ‘VOTE ROY MOORE!’
‘The Pelosi/Schumer Puppet Jones would vote against us 100% of the time. He’s bad on Crime, Life, Border, Vets, Guns & Military,’ he wrote.
White House Chief Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah downplayed the geographical significance of Pensacola on Friday as he spoke with reporters aboard Air Force One.
‘It’s not that he’s not going to Alabama. It’s that he is going to Pensacola,’ Shah said. ‘Pensacola is Trump country. This is a part of the state that voted overwhelmingly for the president in 2016. He’ll be traveling back to Florida from time to time.’
Trump supporters: Paulette Vee, Becky Gee and Pat Morgan (L-R) at the Pensacola Bay Center
President Donald Trump waves as he arrives on Air Force One at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Pensacola, Florida, Friday
By holding his event in Florida, Trump is able to claim that he did not campaign for besieged Republican Roy Moore (pictured) before Tuesday’s special election
The White House has said the president won’t campaign for the former state Supreme Court judge in advance of Tuesday’s election, but that pledge has served as a fig leaf covering his advocacy on Twitter – and, now, in a city across the border.
Shah said of the raft of clakims facing Moore that ‘we find these allegations to be troubling and concerning and they should be taken seriously.’
‘But Roy Moore has also maintained that these allegations aren’t true and that should also be taken into account,’ he added.
Trump won Florida by just 1.2 per cent of the vote, a crucial part of his stunning victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Trump made little effort to hide the purpose of the trip on Friday morning
He held three campaign rallies in Pensacola last year, including an outdoor amphitheater less than a week before Election Day that ended in fireworks.
Another, in January 2016, came while the rest of the Republian field was preoccupied with early primary states.
That’s where the USA Freedom Kids, a trio of sequin-spangled girls who later sued the Trump campaign in a breach of contract dispute, danced and lip-synched to a patriotic tune.
The president will fly to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida after Friday night’s rally and spend part of Saturday at the opening of the new Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.
Trump isn’t expected to speak at the event. Prominent black civil rights leaders including Reps. John Lewis and Bennie Thompson, along with former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus, have said they won’t attend because he will be the main draw.