Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon compared the allegations of sexual misconduct with teens against Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore to the bombshell “Access Hollywood” tape that was released during the 2016 election, accusing The Washington Post of targeting both Moore and Donald Trump politically.
“The Bezos Amazon Washington Post that dropped that dime on Donald Trump is the same Bezos Amazon Washington Post that dropped the dime this afternoon on Judge Roy Moore,” Bannon said at a dinner of conservative activists in Manchester, New Hampshire, Thursday night. “Now is that a coincidence? That’s what I mean when I say opposition party, right?”
An explosive Washington Post report released Thursday based on interviews with more than 30 people detailed allegations that the Republican Senate candidate from Alabama pursued sexual relationships with several women when they were between 14 and 18 years old and he was in his thirties, and in one instance had sexual contact with an underage teen.
Bannon recalled his experience on the Trump campaign when an audio recording from a decade prior surfaced that revealed the President bragging about his fame allowing him to inappropriately touch women, including that he could “grab them by the pussy” and that he would sometimes “just start kissing them.”
After being fired from his position in the White House, Bannon backed Moore in the primary race against Sen. Luther Strange, R-Alabama, pitting him against Trump, who threw his own support behind Strange.
Throughout the campaign, Bannon said, the Washington establishment and the media has been targeting Moore the way it targeted Trump.
“If you saw the way they came after him like the way they’re coming after Judge Moore today, they didn’t debate policy or politics, this was the politics of personal destruction,” Bannon said, adding that the intention was to “attack and destroy” Trump.