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).
California Governor Gavin Newsom is facing a recall election in about two weeks. Newsom was elected governor in 2018 with nearly 62% of the vote after working as lieutenant governor for eight years. However, his popularity took a hit after his handling of Covid-19 pandemic, although the White House is refusing to cite this as the direct reason for the September 14th recall election. There are 46 candidates running to be Newsom's replacement, and some are saying that California could end up electing a republican governor.
Jeremy White, California politics reporter and co-writer of daily California Playbook Newsletter at Politico, joined Cheddar Politics to discuss more about the election and its possible outcomes.
President Joe Biden says the United States will complete it's evacuation of Americans and others from Kabul, despite the attack that killed 12 U.S. service members and many Afghan civilians.
Crypto-enthusiasts are taking to social media to urge regular Afghans to adopt bitcoin in the face of considerable economic uncertainty.
The U.S. economy grew at a 6.6% annual rate last quarter, slightly faster than previously estimated, the government said Thursday in a report that pointed to a sustained consumer-led rebound from the pandemic recession.
The operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant says it plans to build an undersea tunnel so that massive amounts of treated but still radioactive water can be released into the ocean about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) away from the plant to avoid interference with local fishing.
Two suicide bombers and gunmen have targeted crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport, in the waning days of a massive airlift that has drawn thousands of people seeking to flee the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose for the first time in five weeks even though the economy and job market have been recovering briskly from the coronavirus pandemic.
Secretary of State Blinken said Wednesday that as many as 1,500 Americans may be awaiting evacuation from Afghanistan.
Kathy Hochul became the first female governor of New York on Tuesday, vowing to bring new energy and urgency to solving immense challenges as she took over an administration criticized for inaction.
U.S military troops flying round the clock have managed their biggest day of airlifts out of Afghanistan by far.
