Alabama Rep Mo Brooks released an ad touting the fact he spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally before the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol in a new Senate ad as a means of currying favour with former president Donald Trump and his supporters.
Mr Trump had previously endorsed Mr Brooks, a longtime supporter, but told The Washington Examiner’s David Drucker that he was considering rescinding his endorsement due to the Alabama congressman’s performance in the Senate primary.
“Mo Brooks is disappointing,” he said in a telephone interview. “I’m determining right now, has Mo Brooks — has he changed?”
Mr Brooks is running against Mike Durant and Katie Boyd Britt, the former chief of staff to Sen Richard Shelby, the retiring Republican Senator whom they want to replace.
One source of the former president’s ire seems to be the fact that at a Trump rally in Alabama last year, Mr Brooks told supporters to “look forward” to 2022 and 2024 instead of being “despondent” about the 2020 election, which Mr Trump and his supporters claim was stolen from him.
“I’m disappointed that he gave an inarticulate answer, and I’ll have to find out what he means,” he said. “If it meant what he sounded like, I would have no problem changing [my endorsement] because when you endorse somebody, you endorse somebody based on principle. If he changed that principle, I would have no problem doing that.”
On Thursday, Mr Brooks released an ad with footage of him speaking at the “Stop the Steal” rally at the White House Ellipse before Mr Trump’s supporters marched to the Capitol and breached the complex to overturn the 2020 election results.
“On January 6, I proudly stood with President Trump against voter fraud,” he said, before labelling Ms Britt “open-border” and a Republican in name Only.
“That’s why President Trump endorses me and Mitch McConnell opposes us.”
Alabama’s primary will be held on May 24.
