Moore won’t say if he wants McConnell ousted as leader

Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore declined on Tuesday to say whether he would oppose Sen. Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellSenate advances public lands bill in late-night vote GOP senator to try to reverse requirement that Pentagon remove Confederate names from bases No, ‘blue states’ do not bail out ‘red states’ MORE (R-Ky.) remaining Senate majority leader.

Moore, an insurgent Republican who has campaigned on ousting McConnell and the GOP establishment, visited Capitol Hill on Tuesday, where he joined Senate Republicans for lunch. According to CNN, he told reporters afterward that he had spoken with the majority leader.

Asked by reporters whether McConnell should be ousted as the Senate’s top Republican, Moore declined to say, noting that he did not discuss such an idea with the Kentucky Republican.

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“I’m not going to give you an opinion on that right now,” he said, according to CNN.

Moore has, in the past, taken a far more aggressive approach in his rhetoric about McConnell. In campaign emails, for example, the former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice has pledged to remove McConnell from leadership.

Moore beat out incumbent Sen. Luther StrangeLuther Johnson StrangeThe biggest political upsets of the decade State ‘certificate of need’ laws need to go GOP frets over nightmare scenario for Senate primaries MORE (R-Ala.) last month in the state’s GOP runoff election. Strange was backed by McConnell and had also received the endorsement of President Trump, while Moore got the support of Stephen Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist and the current executive chair of Breitbart News.

Moore faces off against Democrat Doug Jones in the general election in December and is considered a heavy favorite to win the deep-red state that backed Trump by 27 points in the presidential election.