WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says President Donald Trump believes Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore “will do the right thing and step aside” if sexual misconduct allegations against him are true.

Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters traveling with Trump in Asia that the president believes a “mere allegation” — especially one from many years ago — shouldn’t be allowed to destroy a person’s life.

But Sanders says: “The president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside.”

The Washington Post reported Thursday that an Alabama woman said Moore had sexual contact with her when she was 14 and he was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney.

The Moore campaign denied the report as “the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation.

Steve Bannon is slamming The Washington Post as part of the “opposition party” after the newspaper reported allegations of sexual misconduct by Moore.

Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, was among Moore’s most vocal supporters this fall. He referenced the Alabama controversy only briefly during an appearance Thursday night in New Hampshire.

Bannon is calling the Post an “apparatus of the Democratic Party” and notes it was among the first to report the “Access Hollywood” tape that caught Trump using sexually predatory language in 2005.

Bannon asks, “Now is that a coincidence? That’s what I mean when I say opposition party.”

It’s too late for Moore’s name to be removed from the ballot, even if he wants to drop out, according to John Bennett, a spokesman for the Alabama secretary of state.

Bennett says the party and candidate can revoke the Republican’s nomination, but his name would appear regardless, because a key deadline has already passed. Bennett says In such a scenario, even if Moore earned more votes than the Democrat, the state canvassing board would declare the Democrat the winner.

Several senior Republicans called on Moore to quit the race.