President Trump Speaks Out about Moore’s Defeat

President Trump is defending his decision to initially back Sen. Luther Strange against Roy Moore in Alabama’s U.S. Senate election, saying in a predawn tweet that “Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him.”

“I was right!” the president said in a Twitter post, a day after Democrat Doug Jones narrowly defeated Moore, a former state Supreme Court chief justice who was hit with allegations of sexual misconduct.

Trump said in his social media post that the reason he originally sided with Strange was that “I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election.” The president had sent a tweet late last night congratulating Jones, a former federal prosecutor, on his “hard fought victory.”

Trump is striking a conciliatory tone toward congressional Republicans after Moore’s defeat. Trump tweeted that if Moore’s loss to Jones “proved anything, it proved that we need to put up GREAT Republican candidates to increase the razor thin margins in both the House and Senate.”

Trump’s postelection assessment seems to be an implicit rebuke of his former strategist, Steve Bannon. Bannon was one of Moore’s staunchest backers, and he’s pledged to run populist challengers against traditional GOP candidates in the primaries.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell has said the party needs “to nominate people who can actually win, because winners make policy and losers go home.” McConnell and Trump backed Moore’s GOP rival, Strange, in the September primary.

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