Fox News host Jesse Watters responded to allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore (R) on Thursday, calling them “disgusting.”
“If these allegations are true, I feel horrible for these women,” Watters said on Fox News’s “The Five.” “It’s disgusting. Even just the allegation itself. It’s not just one person, it’s multiple people.”
Watters, who also hosts “Watters’ World,” then called on Moore to “do the decent thing” and “step down” from the Alabama Senate race.
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“The whole cloud, the whole stench around this guy, I don’t see how he can represent Alabama in the U.S. Senate,” Watters said. “Politics is a dirty business. Innocent until proven guilty. But this doesn’t seem like that to me. I’m just not getting that feeling. I think he should step down. Do the decent thing.”
In a bombshell Washington Post report earlier Thursday, Moore was accused of having an inappropriate sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl in 1979 when he was 32.
Leigh Corfman, now 53, said Moore asked for her phone number during their first meeting and that the two met on two more occasions. On the first, the two kissed. During the second, she said Moore removed his clothes, took off her shirt and pants, and touched her over her bra and underpants, according to the account in the newspaper.
Corfman said the two did not have intercourse.
The newspaper also found three other women who said that Moore had approached them around a similar time, when they were between the ages of 16 and 18. The report said that the women considered Moore pursuing them to be “flattering at the time, but troubling as they got older.”
Moore has denied the allegations, saying they are “completely false and are a desperate political attack by the National Democrat Party and the Washington Post on this campaign.”
A number of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have condemned the actions detailed in the report. Many Republicans have said Moore should be called upon to step aside if the allegations are true.
Moore has been the favorite to win against Democratic candidate Doug Jones, but the shocking revelations could roil the race. Moore beat out current Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.) in the GOP primary in September. The seat previously belonged to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.