By Sophie Tatum
Alabama Sen.-elect Doug Jones on Thursday night attempted to clarify comments he had previously made regarding sexual harassment allegations facing President Donald Trump.
Several members of Congress and the President have faced accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior. Multiple members have since announced their resignation in light of the allegations, and last week, Jones was asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper if he thought Trump should do the same.
Jones said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he thought it was time to “move on.”
“I go back to the fact that those allegations were made, and he was elected President of the United Sates, and I think the American people spoke on that,” Jones said at the time. “At this time, there’s other things out there, but I think at this point we need to move on and try to work with some real issues facing this country and not getting at odds with the President any more than we have to.”
However, while appearing on “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” on Thursday, Jones said he “wasn’t really talking about moving on from those allegations.”
The Alabama Democrat recently won the special election to fill now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ seat, but the race was thrust into the spotlight when accusations against his opponent surfaced.
Republican candidate Roy Moore was plagued with a variety of allegations that he denied, but he eventually got support from President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee.
Mentioning his Republican opponent by name, Jones also said he believed there had been a reckoning in the country about sexual harassment.
“And especially after these allegations — not only with the President, but with others across the country and Roy Moore, I think we’ve truly reached a tipping point. A kind of a crossroads in this country, where women who have been abused and felt abused can now stand up, speak out. That is what I have been for all along,” Jones said.
But Jones told Meyers that he thinks he was put into office by the voters to work on issues like health care.
“And I want to get in there and do those issues,” Jones said. “But that doesn’t by any stretch mean that I don’t think that those issues and those women who have made those allegations aren’t important. They are. They need to stand up, they need to speak out and everybody needs to pay attention to them.”
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