Almost a week after President Donald Trump retweeted anti-Muslim videos, the White House has not explained whether the president has rejected Roy Moore’s assertion that Muslims should be banned from Congress. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was first asked about that in September when the controversial Senate candidate won the GOP primary in Alabama, but after Trump decided to officially support him, fresh questions emerged about the matter.
In 2006 Moore wrote an article named “Muslim Ellison Should Not Sit in Congress” and compared the decision by Representative Keith Ellison to be sworn into office with his hand on the Quran to a (hypothetical) new member choosing, in 1943, to “take their oath on Mein Kampf,” CNN reminds.
Sanders said that she hadn’t asked the president about past statements from Moore.
“I’m saying (Moore) supports the President’s agenda; the President doesn’t necessarily support everything of Moore’s agenda,” she emphasized.
CNN analyzes that even if the matter was never discussed, everyone would hope that the press secretary would feel comfortable to say “No.” Yet, this does not mean that Trump agrees with Moore. In September, Sanders seemed to say that the president does not agree with some of Moore’s past remarks and after a reporter asked her if Trump shares any of the views written in the article about Ellison, the press secretary said that “he didn’t.”
“I have not taken a deep dive on every comment that the senator, or the Senate nominee, has made, but I certainly know where the president stands on those issues and wouldn’t see any parallel between the two of them on that front,” she said at the time.
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