In a desperate bid to keep former President Donald Trump in his corner, Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks has a new Senate ad out that features his pro-Trump speech on Jan. 6, 2021.
“On Jan. 6 I proudly stood with President Trump in the fight against voter fraud,” Brooks says in the ad after it plays a clip of him at a speech at Trump’s “Save America” rally in Washington that took placeshortly before pro-Trump rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol. “I’m running for the Senate because I’m tired of debt junkie, weak-kneed open-border RINOs who sell out our conservative values. That’s why President Trump endorses me and why Mitch McConnell opposes us.”
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The ad is directed at one man: Trump. Trump endorsed Brooks soon after he launched his Senate bid, rewarding Brooks for being the first congressman to say he’d object to certifying President Biden’s Electoral College victory on Jan. 6 and speaking at Trump’s rally that day.
But Trump has had buyer’s remorse since, both because of Brooks’ campaign struggles and because the mercurial congressman hasn’t been as fiercely pro-Trump since the endorsement as he was in the lead-up to the Capitol riot.
Brooks has repeatedly broken with Trump’s demand that everyone stay focused on 2020, infuriating the former president. “Mo Brooks is disappointing,” Trump told the Washington Examiner earlier this week. “I’m determining right now, has Mo Brooks—has he changed?”
Brooks got booed at a Trump rally last August when he told the crowd that those who were “despondent about the voter fraud and election theft in 2020” needed to “put that behind you.” He doubled down on that in early December, and said it was too late to do anything about the 2020 election.
“The day to fix the problem was January 6. Congress, not the courts,” Brooks said. “Congress is the ultimate judge, jury and arbiter of who wins federal elections and for the presidency. January 6 is the date set by law, and the Democrats control the House and the Senate. So, how is Congress going to get the votes in the House and the Senate to change it? We can’t unless we win elections. So, we’ve got to win elections.”
Brooks was the early front-runner to replace retiring Republican Sen. Richard Shelby in Alabama. But after months of missteps and poor fundraising he fired his original campaign team a few months back because of his struggles—while making the curious choice of hiring a campaign manager who had been fiercely critical of Trump in the past.
In the meantime, Katie Boyd Britt, Shelby’s former chief of staff, has out-raised Brooks by huge sums and gained in the polls. Trump recently met with Britt at Mar-A-Lago.
The main reason Brooks is still in this race at all is because of the former president’s endorsement. And Brooks is now desperately trying to work his way back into Trump’s good graces and keep Trump from rescinding his support.
“America does not need any more weakling cowering wimpy Republican congressmen and senators,” Brooks bellowed in the speech from Jan. 6 in the clip featured in the ad.
It sure sounds like he’s cowering right now.
