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Jeb Bush: Roy Moore should step down

"This is not a question of innocence or guilt like in a criminal proceeding," Bush said. "This is a question of what’s right and what’s wrong."
 
File photo of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. | Associated Press
File photo of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. | Associated Press
Published Nov. 13, 2017|Updated Nov. 13, 2017

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called Monday for Republican nominee Roy Moore to quit the Alabama U.S. Senate race, echoing the calls of several top Republicans.

“This is not a question of innocence or guilt like in a criminal proceeding, this is a question of what’s right and what’s wrong,” Bush said in an interview on CNBC. “And acknowledging that you’re dating teenagers when you’re 32 year old as assistant state attorney is wrong. It’s just plain wrong.”

Earlier Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, one of his top deputies, also said Moore should step aside.

Bush intimated in the interview that allegations that Moore dated teenagers when he was a public official in Alabama in the late 1970s and early 1980s would be disqualifying for any candidate.

“We need to stand for basic principles and decency has to be one of those,” Bush said in the interview, which took place in Naples. “In the really poisonous political environment that we have right now, one of the rules I think that has to apply is that when you attack somebody in the other party — on the other team — for doing something wrong, when it happens in your team, you have an obligation, I think, to speak out as well.”

Watch the part of interview where Bush mentions Moore here:

UPDATE 3:55: A woman, Beverly Young Nelson, accused Roy Moore Monday of sexually assaulting her when she was 16. She is the second woman to accuse Moore of assault, and the fifth to say that Moore pursued her as a teenager.