Eight women, thats right, eight women came forward to accuse him of Sexual Misconduct when they were just teenagers. Cnn washington correspondent ryan nobles joins me now live from the white house. Ryan was there. Ryan, the president in effect here endorsing roy moore for the senate . Reporter i think thats a pretty safe assessment of what just happened here at the white house, jim. And just a few weeks ago, the president himself called the allegations against roy moore troubling. One of his top advisers Kellyanne Conway said that no senate seat was worth a child. Well, a bit of a difference of opinion today from the president when he was asked about roy moore and that race in alabama. Take a listen to what the president had to say. We dont need a liberal person in there, a democrat, jones. Ive looked at his record. Its terrible on crime. Its terrible on the border. Its terrible in the military. I can tell you for a fact, we do not need somebody thats going to be bad on crime, bad on borders, bad with the military, bad for the second amendment. Mr. President , is an accused child molester better than the president . Well, he denies it. Look, he deny it is. If you look at what is really going on and you look at all of the things that have happened over the last 48 hours, he totally denies it. He says it didnt happen and, you know, you have to listen to him also. Youre talking about he said 40 years ago this did not happen so, you know. Mr. President . Ill be letting you know next week, but i can tell you you dont need somebody who is soft on crime like jones. Do you not believe the accusers . Reporter and this is a change for the president and the white house. For the last several weeks the line from the administration has been that they want the voters of alabama to decide who their next senator should be and that they refused to weigh in on the allegations and whether or not they believe the accusers. Well today the president taking matters into his own hands, jim, effectively telling the people of alabama that he prefers the republican over the democrat, despite the accusations that he abused children around the age of 14. Jim . You might say more than effectively, directly telling the people of alabama that. Ryan, the president went even further in this embrace of moore, saying that he might campaign for him. Reporter thats right. He certainly left open the possibility of that happening, jim, and you remember back during the Senate Primary there in alabama, the president s preferred candidate Luther Strange lost pretty badly to roy moore, but during that campaign the president said that he planned to come back and Campaign Like hell for whoever won that senate race, and that would include roy moore. When asked today if thats a possibility, he said he would have to let us know next week. Its important to point out the democrat in that race, doug jones, is running an ad that quotes the president s daughter, ivanka trump, saying there is a special place in hell for people who prey on children. Talking about the roy moore camp roy moore as a candidate and the allegations. Would be quite the juks positxtn if the president were to stand side by side with roy moore in alabama feature in that ad featuring his daughter. Jim . Ryan nobles, thanks very much. My panel here with me now. Listen, i want to shake my head but these are the times we live in. This is the current political environment we live in. Mary katherine, if i could start with you. Your reaction to the president endorsing someone not accused by one woman, but by eight women, of making sexual advances to them while they were teenagers . Its remarkable and its remarkable the knots people are tying themselves into going to bat for this person who has all of these accusations against him which have all of these marks of credibility. Contemporaneous reports. Some of the facts line up about where the restaurant was or the courthouse was or where he was at the time. It is remarkable to me people will go to these lengths. This wasnt even trumps guy, by the way. He could have one of his favorite moments, which is an i told you so moment, hes chosen not to do that. We have a watershed moment for people speaking out about these things but we also have increased political tribalism at the same time and we will see which one wins out in this race. Im afraid its probably going to be political tribalism. I want to give you both a chance to respond. Rebecca . I have to say i am a little less shocked to see the president come out and endorse roy moore today. It wasnt a full throated endorsement. Hes not yet on the campaign trail for roy moore. 75 throated endorsement. I think you have to consider a few things here. First of all, donald trump has never cast himself as sort of a moral leader on issues like this. He is a proud i must say he cares about himself personally, politically. Hes not someone who is going to stick out his neck out on an issue like this if there is any risk to him personally or politically. The other thing that i think is important to consider is that President Trump has been in roy moores shoes before. As a candidate accused by women of Sexual Misconduct. And he denied it. He said the women were lying. The white house today still, that is their official position, that those women were lying. Certainly there is also sort of a personal relation that donald trump has for roy moore right now. You can certainly imagine he sympathizes to some extent with the situation hes in. Neera . Can i just step out of politics for one minute to just acknowledge that the president of the United States is endorsing a person accused of pedophilia and were all trying to explain it . That is insane. Im a mother of a daughter who is 15 years old. The message the president is sending to young women, to teenage girls is to never speak out when youre abused because the president of the United States will not hear you, will not believe you. That is disgusting. I dont think anyone, no single human being, no single woman, no single man should justify this. 51 seats, 52 seats. Who cares . When you are in office, you are in office to protect children. The idea that hes talking about doug jones not being soft on crime, hes not accused of pedophilia, the guy hes endorsing is. Thats soft on crime. I am sorry, but this whole experience is enraging as a parent. As a person. I dont know why like, its crazy. Dont be sorry. My daughters only 2 so shes 12 years away from apparently being a target there, but we talked about the president in effectively endorsing roy moore. He explicitly endorses roy moores denial over the accounts of the women, right . You heard the president say repeatedly he denies it and then he said he totally denies it, as to qualify it with greater credibility. Thats the president saying i accept roy moores account i dont believe the women. Over eight or nine women. Right. Again, you have to think back to how donald trump handled this as a candidate and certainly that is informing how he views this race unfolding its unacceptable. Its unacceptable. He gave himself the benefit of the doubt. He wanted voters to give him the benefit of the doubt. Hes giving roy moore the benefit of the doubt here as well. I share your rage, neera, i do not share the surprise because politics is a disgusting business and its been full of disgusting people for a long time. Ive been enraged by the clintons and bill clinton in particular and accusations against him. Ive been enraged by ted kennedy who has one of the worst records with women and john kennedy as well for that matter. We need to learn to distribute our rage equally. One is president right now and one is basically sanctioning a pedophile, a person accused of pedophilia the equivocation there makes me a bit ragy as well. Lets talk about everyone applying the rage equally is actually whats good for women. Okay. Then say we should all say its terrible what the president did. What he did was wrong in endorsing agreed. Yes, i agree. But im also saying to you i dont understand how you can say its understandable he took this position. He took a position where he said i believe im not. I believe roy moore over the eight women, one who is 14 years old with a lot of at the time with a lot of specificity. His own daughter believed the women. I dont understand why we dont just say its wrong. Its wrong. Not to mention the Senate Majority leader. The Senate Majority leader. Republican after republican. Its just wrong. I want to play another comment that the president said just moments ago when he was asked about this watershed moment in the country now regarding Sexual Harassment and allegations in. Our nations history . Women are very special. Think its a very special time because a lot of things are coming out and i think thats good for our society and i think its very, very good for women. And im very happy a lot of these things are coming out. Do you believe the accusers . Im very happy its being exposed. How doesed preside the presi the white house reconcile those comments with what the president just said seconds before . They dont. Because he constantly says things he contradicts himself. This is who he is. Its on full display right there. Whats beyond the pale, right . We ask this question repeatedly. I want to talk to you specifically about the president hes not accused here. Its an Alabama Senate candidate. You talked earlier, this is true this is a politically tribal moment country in this moment. A ham sandwich people will vote for anything many people will vote for any candidate of their party against anything else, right . It seems. But is there nothing beyond the pale then . I guess what i would say is that i actually think why the president is taking this action is probably the white house has seen polling itself in which roy moore, like the good people of alabama, enough people are saying enough. So thats what theyre fighting, right . Theyre trying to invoke the tribalism against the decency of people who say pedophilia is too much for me. Thats whats particularly disgusting about this whole situation. Im sure hes taking action he was not takeing for the last couple of weeks hoping that roy moore would ride it out. He sees that he wont without his help, so hes throwing a lifeline to this person and ordinarily, roy moore was losing and donald trump may make the difference. I hope the people of alabama and the women of alabama will look at whats happening and say, you know, here is the line of decency and im not crossing it. Who do you think made this decision, rebecca, Mary Katherine . Was this the president s decision. There was reporting in advance of this he was being counsel by kellyanne or steve bannon that he shouldnt explicitly criticize roy moore. What are you hearing . Was this the president s own choice . Well, what i will say is that the president is certainly aware, jim, is that his base, hill Political Base is still largely with roy moore in alabama. That might not be consistent across all states, but he does have to consider in this case or he is considering in this case what is good for him politically. And i reported earlier or last week, rather, that steve bannon has been still engaging with influential people on the conservative side, including sean hannity, trying to at least tone down the criticism on the right of roy moore in the public sphere. Trying to, as you said, throw him that lifeline. I dont think the president is listening to that as well, recognizing that there is conservative support for roy moore and he doesnt want to shoot himself in the foot politically when his Approval Ratings are already so low and hes already suffering so much. He endorsed Luther Strange. Thats whats also weird about this. Can i just say in the primary he endorsed Luther Strange, person he backed. You were right. He could just say i have nothing to do with this because i endorsed the other guy. When he endorsed Luther Strange, he said im endorsing Luther Strange because i think roy moore could lose. I want to go to our Kaitlan Collins who is in alabama because earlier as the president before the president was speaking, roy Moores Campaign was waging a new fight against the media and his accusers, his attorney, his spokesman. Kaitlan, they were alleging sort of a bizarre conspiracy in effect between, if im quoting correctly here, roy moores accusers, the liberal media as they described it and the gop establishment. So the idea being that those three are in cahoots here against roy moore . Reporter yeah, thats right, jim. It felt very similar to seeing the Trump Campaign last year before he won the election where they were saying that they were against the media and the republican establishment. Thats really what we heard from several of roy moores allies here in montgomery, alabama, just a short while ago while the president was coming out on the south lawn making these comments about roy moore almost at the exact same time. Right as they were wrapping up here. But it seemed as if roy Moores Campaign already felt they had the white houses support behind them because they cited an interview from counselor Kellyanne Conway on fox news yesterday where she said that a vote for doug jones was a vote against tax reform and basically stopped short, jim, of endorsing roy moore on television. They cited that specific interview here just now. So its no surprise that the president came out and made those comments on the south lawn because we know that Kellyanne Conway spoke with President Trump before she went on fox news to give that interview and they were speaking about the state of the Alabama Senate race. But we can guarantee you pretty much now, jim, that since they have the white houses backing behind them, there is almost no chance that roy moore will drop out of this race now. Oh, no. It was interesting, there was a lot of parsing of Kellyanne Conways words yesterday, what she actually meant, was it an endorsement . As we heard from the more campaign, they certainly took that as an endorsement and moments later you had it from the president himself. Tell us more about the aggressive defense put forward because, kaitlan, as i listen to that news conference, they were going after some of the specific details the accusers have brought up as well. Reporter yeah, thats right. They took two of these main allegations against roy moore from Leigh Corfman and Beverly Nelson and were rebutting specific aspects of them saying they were clearly false because they had looked into Court Documents and what not. We heard from one new face, ben dupree who is a chief of staff for the judge roy moore and now he was here speaking, vouching for her character and attempting to discredit these accusers, specifically Leigh Corfman who we know made her First Television appearance yesterday on the today show where she went into a very detailed account of what happened when she met roy moore. She said said she was only 14 years old when she met him outside of a white house in gadsden, alabama, where he is from. Lets listen to what the Moore Campaign has to say about her allegation. One of the linchpin is that moore talked to her on the phone in her bed proom. Her own mother told Breitbart News that there was no phone in her bedroom. According to public records that the media has not bothered to look at. His supposed pickup place was almost a mile away from her mothers house and would have been across a major thoroughfare. Reporter so you see there getting into the details there with Beverly Nelson. They repeated that the yearbook that she says is from roy moore, snu signature in her yearbook, they say it was fake. To her account she was a 15yearold waitress when she was waitressing at the old hickory house, a restaurant in gadsden. They discredited her account by saying the dumpsters were not in the back of the restaurant, they were on the side of the restaurant. She said it had been very dark. They said it was a welllit restaurant. So we really see them getting into the specific details there, jim, trying to discredit the accusers who they believe are threatening to derail their campaign. Although this was a press conference, they did not take any questions from reporters and say they feel roy moore has sufficiently answered everyones questions on these allegations jim. They sounded like defense lawyers to me. Kaitlan collins, thanks very much. Back to the panel. Mary katherine, you know, this argument that its the accusers, the liberal media, its the gop establishment, that resonates, does it not . With not just republican well, Republican Voters in the country but possibly many in alabama. Yes, it does. Thats what im speaking to, the political tribalism. It also resonates when people hear the media has been untrustworthy on some Sexual Harassment cases in the recent past, the Rolling Stone story, the duke lacrosse case. Recently nbc passing on the weinstein stuff even though it was well reported. The media has aggressively covered these stories. Im explaining to you why people will look at that and go theyve messed this up before. The press should check details that are checkable of these stories. They have. The Washington Post piece was very well reported. Roy moores wife, it should be said, has led the charge in posting on facebook about some of these details and claiming for instance that the restaurant in question was not open at the time the victim alleged. It in fact was if you go back and check these things. She also put out a letter saying a bunch of pastors wer