At Alabama Rally, Trump Toggles Between Republican Loyalists

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and JONATHAN MARTIN SEP. 22, 2017

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — President Trump on Friday implored Alabama voters to support Senator Luther Strange in a close Republican primary, putting his personal political clout on the line in a break with his anti-establishment supporters to aid a lawmaker he portrayed as a loyal soldier for his agenda.

At a raucous rally that he admitted he would rather not have had to attend, Mr. Trump offered a rambling tribute to Mr. Strange, arguing that he had been unfairly tagged as an establishment lackey and an ally of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader whose allies have bankrolled much of Mr. Strange’s campaign.

“They say he’s friendly with Mitch — he doesn’t even know Mitch McConnell,” Mr. Trump told a roaring crowd of several thousand at the Von Braun Center. “Luther is a tough, tough cookie. He doesn’t deal with and kowtow to anybody.”

Yet even as he offered enthusiastic praise of Mr. Strange, Mr. Trump conceded he was conflicted about having waded into the primary contest, to be held on Tuesday, which pits the senator against former state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore, an evangelical conservative who has the backing of many of the president’s anti-establishment supporters.

“I shouldn’t be doing it — the last thing I want to do is be involved in a primary,” Mr. Trump said, adding, almost as if to himself: “I might have made a mistake.” If Mr. Strange loses, he mused aloud, adopting the dramatic tone of a television newscaster, it will be portrayed as “a total embarrassment” for him.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/us/politics/trump-luther-strange-alabama.html?emc=edit_th_20170923&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=57435284