Paul Ryan: ‘I don’t know’ if there’s a difference between Trump and Moore accusers

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan declined to say Friday if there is a difference between the sexual harassment allegations against GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore and those against President Trump.

In an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, Ryan said that he believes the allegations against Moore are “credible.”

Ryan called for Moore to step down from the Alabama Senate race early on in the scandal, after four women told The Washington Post that Moore had pursued them sexually as teenagers, including one who said Moore touched her inappropriately when she was just 14 years old and he was 32.

Since the initial report, several more women have come forward with similar accounts about Moore.

Moore has denied the accusations against him. President Trump has similarly denied allegations of sexual harassment and assault by more than a dozen women.

When asked what the difference between the two cases was, Ryan said he was “focused on Congress.”

{mosads}“I’m focused on Congress,” Ryan said. “Roy Moore is trying to come to Congress. My job here as Speaker of the House is to help make sure that Congress is an institution that we’re proud of and that’s what I’m focused on. He’s running for Congress and I think the allegations against him were very, very credible.”

Inskeep then asked if there is a difference between the cases, to which Ryan replied that he doesn’t know.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” he said. “I haven’t spent my time reviewing the difference in these two cases.”

GOP lawmakers have been under fire for calling for Moore to step down from the race while avoiding the accusations against Trump. The official White House position on the women who have accused Trump is that they are all lying.

Trump also appeared to throw his support behind Moore, saying that Alabama can’t have a “liberal person” like Moore’s opponent, Democrat Doug Jones, in the seat.