Former Alabama Chief Justice and U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore speaks at a news conference, Thursday, Nov. 16, 2017, in Birmingham, Ala., with his wife Kayla Moore, right. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) (Associated Press) 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Ever defiant, Republican Roy Moore's campaign lashed out at the women accusing him of sexual misconduct, declaring "let the battle begin." Women's advocates decried the talk as worn intimidation tactics in a desperate attempt to keep his imperiled Senate bid alive. 
 
 Moore ignored mounting calls from Washington Republicans concerned that he may not only lose a seat they were sure to win but also may do significant damage to the party's brand among women nationwide as they prepared for a difficult midterm election season. 
 
 Moore's team showed no such concerns Thursday. 
 
 "You ask me if I believe the girls. No, I don't believe the girls. I believe Judge Moore," Moore strategist Dean Young said. "Let the battle begin. ... Get ready to fight Mitch McConnell. We're going to fight you to the death on this." 
 
 President Donald Trump, through a spokeswoman, called the allegations of sexual misconduct against the former judge "very troubling." The Republican president stopped short of calling on Moore to quit the race, however, breaking with most Republican leaders in Washington, including McConnell, the Senate majority leader. 
 
 "He thinks that the people of Alabama should make the decision on who their next senator should be," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, declining to clarify whether Trump continued to back Moore. 
 
 Trump did take time to publicly ridicule Democratic Sen. Al Franken, who apologized Thursday after a woman who had traveled with him on a USO tour in 2006 accused him of forcibly kissing her and then groping her for a photograph taken while she was sleeping on a transport plane. Trump tweeted that the photo was "really bad" and that "just last week he was lecturing anyone who would listen about sexual harassment and respect for women." 
 
 In Alabama, Moore appeared alongside more than a dozen religious leaders, who took turns bashing the Christian conservative's many critics — especially his female accusers. 
 
 "This is a man who does not lie. Compare that to his accusers," charged Gordon Klingenschmitt of the group Pray in Jesus' Name. 
 
 With Moore looking on, Klingenschmitt quoted the Ten Commandments in a message aimed at two women he called out by name — one has said she was 14 and the other that she was 16 when Moore initiated sexual contact as a district attorney in his 30s. 
 
 "Thou shalt not bear false witness," Klingenschmitt declared. 
 
 Another Moore supporter, professor Joel Brind of Baruch College, singled out Gloria Allred, the attorney for one of the accusers, for supporting an agenda designed to "enable serial child predators" — a reference, Brind said, to Allred's support for abortion rights. 
 
 Moore called the allegations "unsubstantiated," ''unproven" and "fake." ''They're not only untrue, but they have no evidence to support them," he insisted, refusing to answer any questions from reporters about the allegations. 
 
 Moore has given a single media interview about the allegations to Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity. His campaign website has added a form asking people to report "inappropriate news organization contact." 
 
 Still, he has repeatedly hinted that his team has gathered evidence against his critics. He cited evidence of "collusion" soon after the initial report surfaced last week. 
 
 His wife circulated a fake report earlier in the week that reporters were offering to pay thousands of dollars for women to come forward with new claims against Moore. In a subsequent social media post, she described the media's actions as "an all-out assault, which is why we are suing them." 
 
 Moore's attorney has demanded that one of the accusers, Beverly Young Nelson, release a yearbook she contends Moore signed so it can be analyzed by a handwriting expert to prove its authenticity. Nelson says that Moore aggressively groped her in a locked car when she was 16. 
 
 The Moore campaign dug up Nelson's divorce papers, which had been signed by Moore, and held them up to cameras suggesting she had copied the signature. 
 
 It was unclear whether the campaign was taking other steps to probe the background of his accusers. Moore strategist Dean Young said "no" when asked Thursday whether the campaign had hired a private investigator. 
 
 Gloria Allred, Nelson's attorney, said she and her client were prepared for Moore's "slash and burn" approach. 
 
 "If in fact his attempt is to intimidate her or me, he has failed miserably," she said. "We prepared. We knew that this would be a battle for the truth, that this is someone who most likely will fight to the end." 
 
 At least three new allegations of misconduct surfaced on Wednesday, including one by Tina Johnson, who told AL.com that Moore groped her during a 1991 meeting in his law office. Two others told The Washington Post they were young women when Moore courted them as a district attorney in his 30s. Three other women told the newspaper last week that they were teens when Moore tried to initiate romantic relationships. One said she was 14 when Moore touched her over her bra and underwear. 
 
 The Alabama Republican Party also reiterated its support for Moore on Thursday, a day after its 21-member steering committee privately contemplated the situation. 
 
 The state GOP has the power to revoke Moore's GOP nomination and ask election officials to ignore ballots cast for him, although the state party has little interest in alienating Moore's followers a year before statewide elections. 
 
 Meanwhile, the National Organization For Women condemned the attacks against Moore's accusers, suggesting that the tactics help explain why many victims of sexual harassment are afraid to go public. 
 
 ____ 
 
 Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama. Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Catherine Lucey in Washington contributed to this report. ||||| White House Says Moore Allegations 'Very Troubling,' But Alabama Voters Should Decide 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Drew Angerer/Getty Images Drew Angerer/Getty Images 
 
 Updated at 6:55 p.m. ET 
 
 White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that President Trump believes the allegations of sexual misconduct and sexual assault against Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore are "very troubling and should be taken seriously" but stopped short of calling on him to step aside as other national Republican leaders have. 
 
 "He believes the people of Alabama should make the decision of who their next senator is going to be," said Sanders, who added later that she didn't expect Trump to campaign for Moore. 
 
 Multiple women have now come forward accusing Moore of sexual misconduct, including sexual assault, from when most of them were teenagers decades ago. The reporting of allegations began one week ago when the Washington Post spoke to a woman, Leigh Corfman, who said that when she was 14 and Moore was in his 30s and then a local assistant district attorney, he pursued her romantically and initiated sexual contact with her. 
 
 On Wednesday another woman told the Post that Moore pursued her when she was a high-schooler working at the local mall and phoned her during school when she had ignored his advances in person at the mall. She eventually went out with him, but during that date he gave her an unwanted "forceful" kiss. Other local residents in the Gadsden, Ala., area have said it was well-known that Moore would hang out at the mall to try to pick up teen girls. 
 
 Sanders also pointed back to an earlier statement from Trump, saying that Moore should step aside if the allegations are true. The president "still firmly believes that," Sanders said Thursday. But other GOP leaders who had made similar statements last week have since dropped that qualifier as allegations against Moore mount. 
 
 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.; National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Cory Gardner, R-Colo.; and other top Republicans have said they believe the women making the allegations against Moore are credible and that Moore should step aside. 
 
 The NRSC and the Republican National Committee have severed financial ties with Moore, who continues to deny the allegations. Moore faces Democrat Doug Jones in the Dec. 12 special election to succeed now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. McConnell and Trump both backed appointed Sen. Luther Strange over Moore in the GOP primary. 
 
 A Fox News poll released Thursday evening showed Jones leading Moore by 8 points, 50 percent to 42 percent. Jones was also the preferred candidate of women voters by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, 58 percent to 32 percent. A poll commissioned by the NRSC earlier this week showed Moore's support collapsing as he trailed Jones by 12 points, while other polls have shown a much closer race. 
 
 While national Republicans have abandoned Moore's candidacy en masse, the Alabama Republican Party announced Thursday it is still standing behind the former state Supreme Court chief justice. 
 
 "The ALGOP Steering Committee supports Judge Roy Moore as our nominee and trusts the voters as they make the ultimate decision in this crucial race," Alabama Republican Party Chairman Terry Lathan said in a statement. "Judge Moore has vehemently denied the allegations made against him. He deserves to be presumed innocent of the accusations unless proven otherwise. He will continue to take his case straight to the people of Alabama." 
 
 Moore has remained defiant in the face of the allegations and the calls for him to exit the Senate race. On Thursday, his campaign held a more-than-hourlong news conference with various faith leaders who vouched for his character. 
 
 "Alabama will not kiss the ring of political hacks who have sold their soul to the devil to maintain political power," said one speaker. 
 
 Many who spoke in support of the former judge said Moore was being unfairly targeted because he has stood up for Christian principles. Moore is known for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument he'd had placed in the Alabama Judicial Building rotunda and for ordering state judges to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court's decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide under the federal Constitution — each of which led to his being removed from the bench on separate occasions. Other speakers decried the "LGBT transgender mafia" and said that Moore was the "enemy of both Democratic and Republican homosexualists." 
 
 Moore spoke briefly at the end of Thursday's unwieldy news conference, turning his fire back on McConnell and other GOP leaders. 
 
 "This is an effort by Mitch McConnell and his cronies to steal this election from the people of Alabama, and they will not stand for it," Moore said. 
 
 Moore paused to take questions when he finished but said he would only address policy issues and not any of the allegations against him. When reporters pressed Moore on the accusations instead, Moore and his wife, Kayla, walked out of the room. 
 
 The allegations against Moore have come during a cultural moment reflecting changing views about allegations of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct and sexual assault. In the weeks since bombshell New York Times and New Yorker reports about Hollywood megaproducer Harvey Weinstein, several famous and powerful men have been accused of sexual misconduct and suffered varying impacts on their professional fortunes as a result — including men at NPR. 
 
 NPR's former top news executive Michael Oreskes resigned following sexual harassment allegations against him, and NPR CEO Jarl Mohn has taken a medical leave amid the fallout from Oreskes' departure. Thursday NPR reported that Roger LaMay announced he would step down from his position as chairman of NPR's Board of Directors at the end of his second one-year term and that NPR has placed David Sweeney, recently promoted to the position of chief news editor, on paid administrative leave as it reviews recent allegations about his conduct. 
 
 Also on Thursday, Los Angeles radio host Leeann Tweeden said now-Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., forced himself on her and groped her while the two were on a USO tour in 2006. Franken has apologized for his actions, calling them "inappropriate." Democratic and GOP leaders are now calling for a Senate ethics investigation, which Franken says he will cooperate with. 
 
 Moore also weighed in on Franken's situation via Twitter, claiming McConnell rushed to judgment in his case, but not in the case of the allegation against the Minnesota Democrat. ||||| Alabama Republican Party Chairman Terry Lathan today issued a statement saying the state party supports former Chief Justice Roy Moore and trusts voters to make the "ultimate decision" in the Dec. 12 U.S. Senate election. 
 
 The statement came after the 21-member the Alabama Republican Party Steering Committee met in Hoover Wednesday to discuss the allegations made against Moore. 
 
 "The ALGOP Steering Committee supports Judge Roy Moore as our nominee and trusts the voters as they make the ultimate decision in this crucial race," Lathan's statement read. "Alabamians will be the ultimate jury in this election- not the media or those from afar." 
 
 The state party had been largely silent on the issue, even as prominent members of the national party, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, called on Moore to step aside. 
 
 Lathan had previously warned party officials and candidates against endorsing someone other than Moore. 
 
 "It would be a serious error for any current elected GOP official or candidate to publicly endorse another party's candidate, an independent, a third party or a write in candidate in a general election as well," Lathan told Alabama Political Reporter. "I have heard of no GOP elected official or candidate that is even considering this option." 
 
 Thursday's statement continues: 
 
 "Judge Moore has vehemently denied the allegations made against him. He deserves to be presumed innocent of the accusations unless proven otherwise. He will continue to take his case straight to the people of Alabama." 
 
 "There is a sharp policy contrast between Judge Moore, a conservative Republican who supports President Trump, and the liberal Democrat who will fight and thwart the agenda of our president. We trust the Alabama voters in this election to have our beloved state and nation's best interest at heart.... 
 
 "We are very grateful for the multitudes that have reached out to us with support and prayers. We ask God to guide us, politically and personally, with His mighty strength and wisdom. In turn, we also pray that justice and truth will prevail for all involved in this situation."
– The White House has made its first remarks on the Roy Moore sexual misconduct allegations since President Trump got back from Asia—and they stopped a long way short of calling for Moore to step aside, as many senior Republicans have done. Trump believes allegations against the Senate candidate are "very troubling and should be taken seriously," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday, per NPR, but "he believes the people of Alabama should make the decision of who their next senator is going to be." She didn't say whether Trump still supports Moore, though she told reporters she doesn't think the president will campaign for him. The Alabama Republican Party, meanwhile, issued a statement in support of Moore after a meeting of its 21-person Steering Committee, AL.com reports. "Alabamians will be the ultimate jury in this election—not the media or those from afar," party Chairman Terry Lathan said in the statement. The AP reports that Moore appeared alongside more than a dozen religious leaders in Alabama Thursday. They took turns praising Moore and attacking the women who accuse him of harassing or assaulting them. "This is a man who does not lie. Compare that to his accusers," said Gordon Klingenschmitt of the group Pray in Jesus Name. (Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may be considering a "drastic" option.)