Trump says Moore had deck 'stacked against him'

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump is defending his decision to initially back Sen. Luther Strange against Roy Moore in Alabama’s Senate election, saying in a predawn tweet that “Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him.”

“I was right!” the president said in a pre-dawn Twitter post Wednesday, a day after Democrat Doug Jones narrowly defeated Moore, a former state Supreme Court chief justice who was buffeted by allegations of sexual misconduct.

Trump notes in his social media post that the reason he originally sided with Strange was that “I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election.”

The president had sent a tweet late Tuesday congratulating Jones, a former federal prosecutor, on his “hard fought victory.”