After the former FBI director James Comey likened President Trump to a mob boss in a TV interview, Republicans said Monday they would defend the president without fear of appearing to pile on the country's former top law enforcement official.
"If someone attacks you, you have a right to defend yourself," said Kayleigh McEnany, the Republican National Committee spokesperson. "So yes, we will defend the president who is being relentlessly attacked in a tell-all book."
Comey, who says he was fired last year after he refused to pledge his loyalty to the president, told ABC News's George Stephanopoulos in a interview broadcast Sunday that Trump is "morally unfit to be president." Comey was promoting his new book, "A Higher Loyalty," which was to be published Tuesday.
In the interview, Comey said his decision to alert Congress less than two weeks before the 2016 presidential election of additional emails under investigation by the FBI was influenced by his belief that Hillary Clinton would defeat Trump. In her own book published last year, Clinton said Comey's decision cost her the presidency.
Reactions to Comey's interview ー and the statements in his book ー have been split, largely along party lines.
"It was very sad," McEnany said in an interview on Cheddar. "What i saw was someone trying to rehabilitate his image."
In a [tweet](https://twitter.com/davidaxelrod/status/985543801660985344) Sunday night after the ABC broadcast, President Obama's former chief strategist David Axelrod said he questions the timing of Comey's book coming as it does at a critical phase in the special counsel'sinvestigation of the Trump campaign's possible dealings with Russia. "But I have no doubt about its brilliance when it comes to book sales," said Axelrod. "Maybe he should have called it Higher Royalties?
Advance sales have pushed "A Higher Loyalty" to the top of Amazon's Best Sellers list. The book's publisher, Macmillan Publishers' Flatiron Books, was printing 850,000 copies in anticipation of high demand, CNN reported.
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-rnc-fires-back-after-james-comey-interview).
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has for more than two decades accepted luxury trips nearly every year from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow without reporting them on financial disclosure forms, ProPublica reports.
Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist and scion of one of the country’s most famous political families, is running for president.
A Democratic state lawmaker in North Carolina announced Wednesday that she is jumping to the Republican Party, giving the GOP veto-proof majorities in both the state's legislative chambers that should make it easier to enact conservative policies over the opposition of Gov. Roy Cooper.
The Environmental Protection Agency is tightening rules that limit emissions of mercury and other harmful pollutants from coal-fired power plants.
King Charles III’s wife has been officially identified as Queen Camilla for the first time, with Buckingham Palace using the title on invitations for the monarch’s May 6 coronation.
Tax payers are getting less bang for their buck in 2023. The IRS said the government has so far issued $172 billion in refunds. That's down 9 percent from a year ago, and the average refund is down from roughly $3,2000 to $2,900. However, the overall number of people to get refunds is up 3 percent.
Doctors accused of not providing enough care to infants delivered alive during certain kinds of abortion procedures in Kansas could face lawsuits and criminal charges under a bill that won final approval Tuesday in the state's Republican-controlled Legislature.
Some 9.2 million lead pipes carry water into homes across the U.S., with more in Florida than any other state, according to a new Environmental Protection Agency survey that will dictate how billions of dollars to find and replace those pipes are spent.
Former President Donald Trump has been warned by the judge in his criminal case to avoid making comments that are inflammatory or could cause civil unrest.
The incoming majority is expected to rule on a challenge to the state's 1849 abortion ban. The current court, under a 4-3 conservative majority, came within one vote of overturning President Joe Biden’s win in the state in 2020.
