Email insights: Fact checking Mo Brooks in increasingly heated Senate slugfest

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As the battle for Alabama’s U.S. Senate seat rages, the most significant name in the race isn’t even on the ballot – President Donald Trump.

A new email from the Senate Leadership Fund blasts congressman and Senate candidate Mo Brooks of having more than a whiff of desperation when he “pretends” to endorse Trump’s immigration policies, something which he previously ridiculed.

“I think it is wonderful that what President Trump is doing on national level, that the incentive for illegal aliens to come across our border has subsided…” Brooks recently told FOX Business News “…we need that wall in place for the next Barack Obama-type Administration.”

The facts simply don’t bear that out, says the email.

According to SLF spokesperson Chris Pack: “Career congressman Mo Brooks is desperately trying to sell himself to Trump supporters by embracing the same Trump immigration policies that he viciously mocked just months ago. Sorry, Mo — that dog won’t hunt.”

As proof, the email provides a laundry list of times Brooks mocked Trump’s border wall as “Economically Nonsense” and “A Fruitless Exercise,” offering a well-cited 2016 MSNBC video showing Brooks saying Trump “is not going to do what people think he’s going to do” on border security.

“He says he wants to build this great big wall with a great big door and deport all these illegal aliens, costing taxpayers billions of dollars in deportation costs,” Brooks, a Ted Cruz supporter, told The News Courier in February 2016. “The only difference between Obama’s border policy and Trump’s amnesty policy is Trump wants to spend billions on a fruitless exercise.”

The group is also behind the website MoBrooksMoLies.org.

Senate Leadership Fund – which is spending more than $2.5 million to support incumbent Sen. Luther Strange — is the super PAC linked to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, designed to help protect and expand a Republican majority in the United States Senate. The SLF cash influx, along with raising nearly $2.7 million so far in the race, has allowed Strange to dominate email inboxes and airwaves.

In contrast, Brooks has about $1.3 million cash on hand heading into the Aug. 15 primary, mostly leftover from previous House races.

While not officially endorsing anyone, Trump has emerged as the key figure in Alabama’s Senate primary. In a recent campaign ad, Strange boasted his conservative Christian values, proudly claiming he is a “Trump man.”

As Roll Call notes: “All  campaigns and outside groups are seeing the same poll numbers when it comes to GOP primary voters: Trump is the clearest path to their hearts.”

It certainly explains the heated slugfest between Strange and Brooks over who had been (and currently) a bigger fan of the president – particularly since Alabama was (arguably) Trump’s No. 1 state in the 2016 election.