After warning that she would “filet” fired former FBI Director James Comey when he appeared on “The View,” Meghan McCain asked him some tough questions Wednesday about his book and recent comments he’s made on the Republican Party.
“I want to believe you’re not a political person,” McCain told Comey. “You’re the head of the FBI. But you write in your book about you went to President Obama and you were on the verge of tears, saying you were going to miss him. You also said you were dreading the next four years with Trump.”
“The big issue I have is I don’t want to know your politics,” she emphasized, “and a lot of the things you’re saying and doing are highly political. And I just don’t understand what you gain trying to sort of clear the deck here.”
“I don’t think of it as my politics, I think of it as my values,” Comey replied.
.@MeghanMcCain: "The big issues I have — I don't want to know your politics. And a lot of the things you're saying are highly political."
— The View (@TheView) April 18, 2018
James @Comey: "I don't think of it as my politics, I think of it as my values." pic.twitter.com/LGXpcWBCCV
McCain brought up that Comey had mentioned his wife’s support for Hillary Clinton and participation in the Women’s March in his ABC interview, asking “why bring up politics now?”
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“I brought it up because I was asked about it,” Comey argued.
“You have to understand how this looks to Republicans,” McCain said citing an interview in which he called the Republican party “ego-driven” and not reflective of values.
“You sound like a political commentator to me,” she said.
“I don’t care whether people support a Republican or a Democrat because I’m not either,” he replied. “I don’t care who they support. I hope the conversation will start with values and come to policies second.”
McCain also asked Comey about criticism he’s received over his book “A Higher Loyalty.”
“I think it’s worth noting that David Axelrod, a big Democrat, a former chief strategist to President Obama, said ‘I have no doubt about its brilliance when it comes to book sales. Maybe he should have called it Higher Royalties,’” she said.
Comey said he would encourage Axelrod to read his book.
“The first thing I’d do is ask him to read the book, and I'm not saying he should agree with me, but if he reads the book, he will see I'm trying to make choices between bad options and doing it in a way that I think you would want someone as director of the FBI to do it,” Comey replied. “So even if you leave the book still thinking I'm an idiot, you realize I'm actually kind of an honest idiot and I'm not on anybody's side.”
Comey's also hoping that Hillary Clinton will come away from reading his book with the conclusion that he's "an honest idiot."
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