COLUMN | Ping-Pong With Mo: Brooks Discusses GOP Runoff, Trump & Primary Voting

TUSCALOOSA, AL — I could feel the sweat form in little beads on my head and the back of my neck the moment that first orange Ping-Pong ball whizzed by me and rattled across the wood floor in front of about a dozen people at Bowlero in Tuscaloosa.

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It was like a fever dream.

Of all the ways I could have spent my Thursday afternoon, I was being hustled at table tennis by U.S. Senate candidate and Republican Congressman Mo Brooks. Yes, you read that right.

On the third day of hearings in Washington D.C. concerning the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection on Capitol Hill — an event he is directly linked to — and less than a week before the June 21 GOP Primary Runoff, Brooks was in Tuscaloosa ... taking a break from pressing the flesh to beat the ever-loving crap out of me at Ping-Pong.

"Are you sure you're warmed up?" he asked me.

Who did he think he was talking to?

I grew up with a Ping-Pong table, after all, and am proficient at the game. I have decent hand-eye coordination but am far too prideful to admit defeat early and shrugged off his offering for some warm-up rounds. I was ready to play.

How in the hell had we gotten here?

Was it not a little more than a year ago that my ping-pong opponent stood before an angry mob outside the White House and suggested that it was "time to start taking down names and kicking ass"?

While I didn't even make an attempt at his first fastball serve, the second had so much English on it all I could do was nub the ball into the floor with the side of my paddle.

By this point, my face and ears were red ... and not from competitive spirit.

I gave up after dropping five straight sets in embarrassing fashion to the 68-year-old, white-haired man and couldn't stop laughing at the absurdity of the situation I had found myself in. It was only after that impromptu campaign stop — and upon hearing that Brooks had brought his own paddle — that I learned of his longstanding passion for the game.

But after a swift and sound beating that brought out laughter in those gathered round, he still granted me some time to chat about recent developments on the campaign trail, namely former President Donald Trump's endorsement of his opponent Katie Britt in the Republican Primary runoff next week.

The news came as the latest unexpected shock to the Brooks camp, considering he was one of Trump's earliest allies in Congress. Indeed, it was the Alabama congressman who stuck by Trump's side through innumerable controversies, leaving little time to effect much meaningful legislative change during his time on Capitol Hill.

But he would reach his MAGA zenith on Jan. 6, 2021, when he became one of the most infamous players in The Ellipse rally held on the White House grounds prior to the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol in the hours that followed.

His loyalty to Trump notwithstanding, a decline in poll numbers, mixed with the poor reception of Brooks calling for Trump's most ardent supporters to move on from disputing the results of the 2020 presidential election, both likely factored in to Trump's decision to pull his endorsement of Brooks in favor of feeling out the results of the Republican Primary in May.

Trump's passion for frontrunners has been documented ad nauseam over the years, yet most thought it unlikely that he would endorse a former aide of U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby — one of his more powerful establishment rivals within the Republican Party.

As I wrote last week, Brooks was then reduced to publicly lobbying for Trump's endorsement after scratching his way to a runoff and received only news that the former president would back his opponent on June 21. After putting so much of his own career on the line, Brooks viewed it as a direct betrayal by a dishonest man.

He then reiterated the words first reported by AL.com columnist Kyle Whitmire last week: "Donald Trump has no loyalty."

"He gave me his word he was going to endorse me and others, then he gave me his word he was not going to endorse Katie Britt," Brooks told me as he leaned on a pool table. "In 2016, he said that Ted Cruz's father was involved with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Sometimes he says things for effect that are clearly untrue on their face but maybe does it in a humorous context or sarcastic context, but there are a lot of things he utters that are not true."

And Brooks is definitely not one of the people laughing at recent comments, particularly when Trump referred to him as "woke" — a term that has different political meanings depending on who you ask. For the sake of Trump's use of the term, the label implies that Brooks supports progressive social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter.

Brooks and I may be split on just about every political issue, but the sheer silliness of using the term "woke" to describe the rogue congressman is something we both can easily agree upon.

To his credit, Brooks is one of a few in Congress occupying a certain idealogical fringe. The anti-establishment wing of the party carries unnecessarily harsh and increasingly radical stances on immigration and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, in addition to fighting public health measures during the different phases of the coronavirus pandemic.

Brooks has also been a politically-advantageous supporter of the Second Amendment, at a time when many across the country are calling for some kind of gun reform to combat the frequency of mass shootings in America. His stance remained unchanged even after he was one of several elected officials present in 2017 when a gunman opened fire at a practice for a charity softball game — a shooting that injured four people, including his colleague and Republican House Whip Steve Scalise.

"Nobody who knows anything about my background would think for a New York Minute that I'm woke," he said. "And according to the American Conservative Union, I have the best grade of any member of the U.S. Congress from Alabama, so that's part of Donald Trump's modus operandi. He says things for attention and effect. You can't take him literally."

Many voters are taking the former president's words literally, however, as Brooks lags his opponent in the polls with less than a week until the ballots are cast. Even in places like Tuscaloosa, electronic billboards featuring Britt and Trump can be seen touting the presidential endorsement.

"It all comes down to who turns out to vote," he told me on Thursday. "If conservatives and Republicans and thinking folks show up to vote, then we do very well. If people who are enamored with brazen thoughts, brochures and attack ads turn out to vote, then Katie Britt will win because she has the millions of dollars in special interest group money to put that out. I do not. I'm a conservative, I'm a Republican and I'm not the candidate whose been endorsed by the executive director of the Alabama Democratic Party."

Echoing his latest campaign ads, Brooks took aim at recent turbulence in the Alabama political ecosystem, primarily when outgoing Alabama Democratic Party Executive Director Wade Perry took to Twitter to say that Britt was "super helpful" in the 2017 election of Democrat Doug Jones to his lone, truncated term in the U.S. Senate.

As AL.com's Paul Gattis first reported, Perry also praised Britt for her role in the passage and implementation of the state gas tax increase, saying "Most ‘Dems’ understand she just has to ‘say’ certain things.”

"People need to do their homework," Brooks lamented. "If they are conservative and Republican then it's a no-brainer they vote Mo Brooks. If they're a liberal and a Democrat they vote Katie Britt ... Technically, Democrats are not supposed to vote in Republican primaries, but nonetheless some Democrats are less honorable than others and they participate in our primaries even though they're not supposed to under the United States Constitution."

This interpretation of the law by the congressman is, at best, misrepresented.

As it stands, Alabama prohibits crossover voting in party primaries, meaning that if you cast a ballot in one party primary election, then you cannot legally vote in the runoff for the opposite party. Crossover restrictions don't apply in general elections.

What Brooks is referring to, though, is undeniable and arguably a chief fear among more fringe conservatives in red states, as candidates with overt establishment ties — like Britt — show wider appeal to more moderate and liberal-minded voters who live in overwhelmingly conservative areas.

While party officials definitely take issue with card-carrying members voting for or even donating to those in other parties, it goes without saying that the vast majority of Alabamians aren't dues-paying Republicans or Democrats. They simply don't have time for it.

It appears, however, that Brooks may already see the writing on the wall with respect to how Alabama conservatives may vote on June 21 and the shift in tone in his voice when his focus shifted from ping-pong to politics was difficult to overlook.

Still, after our conversation concluded and talk turned back to the game, he flashed a smile and said "Maybe once I'm elected to Senate you can look me up and we'll play again."

Ryan Phillips is the founder and field editor of Tuscaloosa Patch. The views expressed in this opinion column are his and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of our parent company.