President Donald Trump, whose own campaign was rocked by sexual harassment allegations, has declined to publicly discuss accusations that Roy Moore, the Republican nominee in the Alabama Senate race, made inappropriate advances toward teenage girls several decades ago.
His reticence disappeared Thursday night when it came to Sen. Al Franken, the Minnesota Democrat who was accused earlier in the day of groping and sexual hectoring during a 2006 USO tour.
"The Al Frankenstien picture is really bad, speaks a thousand words. Where do his hands go in pictures 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 while she sleeps?" read the president's first tweet, sent just after 10 p.m. in Washington.
Ten minutes later, he added: "And to think that just last week he was lecturing anyone who would listen about sexual harassment and respect for women. Lesley Stahl tape?"
The first referred to a photograph of Franken putting his hands near the breasts of a sleeping Leeann Tweeden, a Los Angeles radio news anchor who accused Franken of groping her and of an aggressive kiss during a rehearsal for a skit he had written.
The second appeared to refer to a skit Franken had discussed while working on "Saturday Night Live" that involved drugging and raping CBS reporter Lesley Stahl. The reference was included in a 1995 New York magazine article.
Franken, who joined the Senate in 2009, apologized to Tweeden on Thursday in two statements and said he would fully cooperate with an ethics investigation. Tweeden said in a CNN interview that she accepted the apology.
Trump's criticism of Franken was notable because the president has so far declined to offer a specific response to allegations by several women that Moore, as a prosecutor in his 30s, approached them while they were teenagers. Two women have alleged physical assaults.
Trump said during his recently concluded Asia trip that he would have more to say about Moore when he returned home. But he left it to Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday to offer a bare-bones comment.
"The president believes that these allegations are very troubling and should be taken seriously, and he thinks that the people of Alabama should make the decision on who their next senator should be," she said.
Sanders said Trump believes Moore should step aside if the allegations are true, but she would not say what the president would take as proof.
During the presidential campaign, Trump was accused by more than a dozen women of sexual harassment, many instances of which involved unwanted physical contact. He continues to contend that all of the women who have accused him are liars, Sanders said last month.
Trump also was captured in a video released one month before the election in which he bragged about grabbing and kissing women against their will.
Asked why Trump finds allegations against Moore troubling while contending the ones against him are to be dismissed, Sanders said that the president "has certainly a lot more insight into what he personally did or didn't do."
"And he spoke out about that directly during the campaign. And I don't have anything further to add beyond that," she said.
