During a Tuesday interview with Washington Examiner, former President Donald Trump reportedly expressed his displeasure with U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) and his performance in Alabama’s U.S. Senate race.
According to Washington Examiner, part of Trump’s grievance against Brooks concerns the congressman’s misstep at last year’s rally in Cullman where he told rally goers to “look ahead” to the midterm elections rather than hold animus over the 2020 presidential election results.
“Mo Brooks is disappointing,” the outlet quoted Trump as saying in the interview. “I’m determining right now, has Mo Brooks — has he changed?”
Although Brooks has remained one of Trump’s most steadfast defenders as it relates to the former president’s election fraud claims, Trump indicated that he could consider pulling his endorsement of Brooks in favor of another candidate.
“I’m disappointed that he gave an inarticulate answer, and I’ll have to find out what he means,” Trump advised. “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.”
Trump continued, “I endorsed him because he felt strongly about election fraud. And he still does. But he was inarticulate in the way he said it.”
The former president’s dissatisfaction with Brooks did not end there, according to the outlet. Trump also expressed his discontent with Brooks’ standing in the race.
Washington Examiner referred to polling reported by Yellowhammer News earlier this week that showed Brooks had dropped to third in the race, well behind U.S. Army veteran Mike Durant and former Business Council of Alabama CEO Katie Britt. The Alabama Forestry Association-commissioned poll was conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, a firm which Trump is said to rely heavily upon for polling services.
The poll found that Durant currently leads the GOP primary field with 33.8% of support, followed by Britt at 32.0% and Brooks at a distant 17.6%, with 16.6% being undecided. Additionally, only 49.4% of respondents were aware that Trump had endorsed Brooks.
Trump acknowledged Brooks’ polling numbers by noting, “It’s a very tight race between the three of them right now, and I’m not particularly happy.”
In a statement provided to Yellowhammer News, Brooks campaign spokesman Will Hampson dismissed recent polling and said that Trump has been made aware that he had been “lied to” by Britt.
“Here’s the deal: Katie Britt and her team put out a bogus poll, then lied to President Trump about it,” stated Hampson. “She’s still in third place where her pathetic campaign has always been, and that might explain the President’s mind set– they lied to him. The matter has been addressed, President Trump knows Katie Britt lied to him, he knows she’s Mitch McConnell’s candidate, and he’ll remember this episode.”
Hampson took a shot at the funding sources of a super PAC supporting Durant and reiterated Brooks’ assertion that widespread voter fraud had occurred during the 2020 presidential election.
“He also knows Mike Durant’s campaign is being funded by Never Trumpers. There is no other choice for President Trump: not Mitch McConnell’s candidate, and not a Never Trumper,” added Brooks’ spokesman. “President Trump also knows Mo’s position on 2020 has never changed: the 2020 election was fraught with voter fraud and election theft on a massive scale, and that Mo Brooks was the ONLY one in this race to stand with him on January 6th.”
Dylan Smith is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSmithAL
