Trump presidency a ‘forest fire,’ says Comey in Colbert

‘Scandal’ raises bar for social media

LOS ANGELES, April 18, (RTRS): Former FBI director James Comey called the Trump presidency “a forest fire” and defended his handling of the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email during his appearance Tuesday night on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”

Comey is in the midst of a media blitz to promote his new book “A Higher Loyalty.” Tuesday’s stop on CBS’ “Late Show” marked his first extended interview outside the news realm. Colbert has been among the media’s most vocal critics of the Trump administration.

Comey was fired in May 2017 by Trump, a move that stirred outrage because Comey was steering the FBI’s investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. In response to Comey’s book, which details his grave concerns about the lack of moral and ethical leadership exhibited by Trump, the president has called Comey a “slime ball” and said he should be in jail.

“He’s tweeted at me probably 50 times,” Comey told Colbert. “I’ve been gone for a year, I’m like the breakup he can’t get over. He wakes up in the morning ... I’m out there living my best life, he wakes up in the morning and tweets at me.”

Colbert, meanwhile, defended Comey’s remarks in the book about the President’s physical appearance. Comey’s reference to the President’s hands and the orange hue of his skin have drawn criticism as low blows. Colbert noted that those remarks are a few paragraphs in a book that runs more than 200 pages. Plus, Colbert said, Trump “looks like a microwave circus peanut that someone rubbed on a golden retriever.”

Comey warned of the damaging effects of Trump’s out-there behavior on the national psyche. But he discouraged talk of impeachment. He asserted that voters need to be motivated to go to the polls to remove Trump via the ballot box in 2020. He called Trump “a forest fire,” but added that “forest fires allow things to grow that couldn’t grow before.”

Colbert’s sit-down with Comey took up most of Tuesday’s hourlong episode. “Late Show” made the entire uncut 32-minute interview available via YouTube.

Seth Doane was in town to see a concert. Chances are he’ll encounter a lot more.

The CBS News correspondent earlier Tuesday found himself in the Syrian city of Aleppo, where a celebration has been scheduled for a Syrian “Independence Day.” People “are handing out Syrian flags,” says Doane. But there’s a lot more to see. “The conflict has so many faces. The more you stay here, the more you have to do.”

Seth Doane is the only US network correspondent reporting from Douma, Syria, the site of the suspected chemical attack by the Assad regime on April 7. He and his team have been reporting from inside Syria since last week and were in Damascus as the coalition airstrikes happened on Friday. This week, they made it inside the house where the attack took place, before inspectors for the International Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons could arrive, and have been reporting on what they find for all of CBS News’ various outlets, including “The CBS Evening News,” “Face the Nation” and CBSN.

Doane says his team was able to enter the country on a government visa, the result of a lot of behind-the-scenes work by producers, bureau chiefs and other units of CBS News. Once the chemical attack took place earlier this month, he says, CBS News executives “had a sense we needed to get moving on those visas. They got things into motion to get us here.” The team had to get to Beirut, and then travel from there to Aleppo and other points.

He has been surprised to encounter intriguing signs of life in his travels. He has passed “people farming artichokes, fields of wheat” and spotted “civilians who have kind of come out - in some cases, come out of hiding. People who have been living underground, living in basements, during the worst of the bombardments” by the Syrian government.

He believes the musical event is taking place partly to show the outside world that life in Syria continues. “Clearly, the government wants the world media to see this. Since the missile attack, they have gone to great lengths to show a strong face.”

He plans to do as many stories as he can until the government decides he has to leave. Doane expects to continue his trip through Syria for the rest of the week.

After seven seasons and more than 120 episodes, Shonda Rhimes’ fixer-drama “Scandal” is signing off ABC for good April 19. The series broke new ground when it first premiered in April 2012 for its sharp-tongued characters, willingness to take on tough political topics, inclusive casting — and ushering in a new era of appointment (and interactive) television by live-Tweeting.

“I hope that people remember being a little more alive because of our show,” says Kerry Washington, who spearheaded the plan to get the rest of the cast on the social media platform. “We take you on a ride of intensity and fear and romance and sorrow and elation. You’re more connected, and that, I feel, is important.”

The series premiere of “Scandal” debuted to the tune of 7.33 million live+same day viewers and averaged 8.21 million viewers in its first, seven-episode, season. The ratings grew steadily over the course of the first few years, seeing a peak in season 4 with an average total viewership of 12.66 million.

That season was a pinnacle for the series’ social ratings as well. To date, the season 4 premiere entitled “Randy, Red, Superfreak and Julia,” which aired on Sept. 25, 2014, is still the most-Tweeted episode with more than 724,000 Tweets sent during the episode, according to Twitter.

“I think part of what made the ‘Scandal’ interaction really authentic was they had been devoted to this from the beginning,” Twitter global partnership solutions leader Lara Cohen tells Variety. “They made this party on Twitter