Former FBI Director James Comey expressed hope that America will not re-elect President Trump, emphasizing he is looking for a Democratic candidate in 2020 who can appeal to the “great middle.”
“The rhythm of history, of American history, tells us that eventually, the American people in their great mass will tire of him and come to realize that he threatens what is essentially America, which is our values,” he said during a podcast interview with The Economist, hosted by Anne McElvoy.
“You’re starting to see a little of that with the treatment of children at the border, but if history is a guide, and I believe it is, the American people will tire of the show, and come to see that whatever trade they convinced themselves was worth it to elect such a person, it isn’t in the long run worth it,” Comey said.
One of the main topics in the interview was whether or not Comey thinks his memoir has damaged the presidency or the FBI. Comey was investigating the two main candidates leading up to the 2016 presidential election — Hillary Clinton for her handling of classified emails, and then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign’s alleged collusion with the Russian government. Last week, a report from the Department of Justice’s inspector general on the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email investigation found Comey to have been “insubordinate,” but concluded that he wasn’t motivated by political bias.
“I hope to be part of a conversation to awaken the giant — that is the American people — that are essentially ethical good people, and have them realize that a threat to our values transcends politics and that you can’t have a president that doesn’t reflect American values … Maybe the fever won’t break until a second term, but the lesson of American history is it inevitably breaks,” Comey said.
When asked about his use of the word “fever” and whether Trump can be considered a kind of “illness” in American politics, Comey responded, “He’s not. He reflects a pain and an illness that is a regular feature of American life. We make great progress, there’s change and turbulence and pain, and then we suffer a period of fever, and then we recover.”
