Rush Limbaugh floated a Hail Mary defense of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore this week, telling viewers of his widely consumed radio show that Moore was a Democrat during the period when five women say he made sexual advances on them as teenagers.
“Did you know that before 1992, when a lot of this was going on, that Judge Moore was a Democrat,” said Limbaugh in comments published Tuesday. “While he was a Democrat, nobody said a word. When he supposedly was attracted to inappropriately aged girls, he was a Democrat.”
Moore was likely heading for an easy win in the Alabama special Senate election next month before The Washington Post reported that four women say he made sexual advances on them in the 1970s, when they were teenagers. One accuser was just 14 at the time.
On Monday, a fifth women, Beverly Young Nelson, held an emotional press conferenced with attorney Gloria Allred and accused Moore of sexually assaulting her in a car when she was just 16.
“I thought he was going to rape me,” said Nelson, choking up at times. “At some point, he gave up.”
Moore has steadfastly denied the accusations, but that has not stopped a growing chorus of senior Republicans — including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — from denouncing his candidacy and calling on Moore to leave the race.
“He’s obviously not fit to be in the United States Senate,” McConnell told a scrum of reporters Tuesday. “And we’ve looked at all the options to try to prevent that from happening.”
The Limbaugh comments suggest that Moore still has at least some GOP influentials willing to go to bat for him.