Former President Donald Trump recently expressed disapproval with Rep. Mo Brooks, whom he has endorsed for the Alabama Senate. According to a Washington Examiner report, Trump is even considering pulling his endorsement of Brooks and switching to Katie Britt or Mike Durant.
“Mo Brooks is disappointing,” Trump told the Washington Examiner. “I’m determining right now, has Mo Brooks — has he changed?”
The former president endorsed Mo Brooks early in 2021 before many candidates had even announced their campaigns, making him the frontrunner to succeed Senator Richard Shelby.
In April 2021, Trump stated, “Mo Brooks has my Complete and Total Endorsement for the U.S. Senate representing the Great State of Alabama. He will never let you down!”
During the interview, Trump said he endorsed Brooks because he believed Brooks shared his view that the 2020 election was stolen. However, Trump explained, if Brooks’s position has changed, he may take away the endorsement. Trump was referring to a rally last August when Brooks encouraged attendants to stop feeling “despondent” about 2020 and “look forward” to 2022 and 2024, a comment that made Trump doubt Brooks’s allegiance to him.
“I’m disappointed that he gave an inarticulate answer, and I’ll have to find out what he means,” Trump said, referring to Brooks’s remarks at his rally in Alabama last August. “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 then backtracked and said he does not believe Brooks has changed his stripes.
“I endorsed him because he felt strongly about election fraud. And he still does. But he was inarticulate in the way he said it,” Trump said.
Yellowhammer News reported that a recently released poll showed Mike Durant leading the field with 33.8% and Britt close behind at 32%. Brooks was in third and trailing, with 17.6%. The March 10–13 survey for the Alabama Forestry Association was conducted by McLaughlin & Associates.
“It’s a very tight race between the three of them right now, and I’m not particularly happy,” Trump said.
Brooks campaign spokesman Will Hampson spoke to Yellowhammer News and dismissed the recent polling.
“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 mindset– 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.”
