Former FBI Director James Comey says President Donald Trump can’t quit him.
“I’ve been gone for a year. I’m like the breakup he can’t get over,” Comey told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show Tuesday night. “He wakes up in the morning—I’m out there living my best life—he wakes up in the morning and tweets at me.”
“He’s tweeted at me probably 50 times,” Comey said. The appearance was one in a series by Comey as he promotes his book, A Higher Loyalty, which addresses Comey’s relationship with Trump before Trump fired the FBI director last May.
Trump has responded to Comey’s book with a slew of attacks. On Wednesday, the president seemed to reverse his prior claim that he fired Comey because of the FBI’s investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia.
In an angry series of tweets on Sunday, Trump suggested Comey should be jailed for what Trump says are false claims that Comey made in testimony before Congress about their interactions. Trump has not provided evidence to support his claim that Comey lied. Trump also suggested Comey should be imprisoned for using an associate to share with the New York Times details of a memo Comey wrote about his interactions with Trump.
Comey said his initial reaction to such threats was to shrug. But he said the country should not dismiss Trump’s rhetoric.“It’s not okay,” Comey said. “There’s a danger we are now numb to it and the norm has been destroyed.”
“The president of the United States is calling for the imprisonment of a private citizen, as he’s done for a whole lot of people who criticize him,” Comey said on Good Morning America Tuesday. “That is not acceptable in this country.”