Axios

In a surprise move, President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey Tuesday night. Almost immediately after several people began comparing the move to former President Richard Nixon's controversial firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox and Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy AG William D. Ruckelshaus in 1973:

• Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), ranking member on House Oversight committee: The firing "harkens back to a similarly tainted decision by President Nixon."
• Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV): "I'm old enough to remember... and it didn't come out so well for President Nixon."
• Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT): "This is nothing less than Nixonian."
• Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA): "This is Nixonian. Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein must immediately appoint a special prosecutor to continue the Trump/Russia investigation."
• Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT): It certainly is "Nixonian" in tone to fire someone of this stature in the midst of an investigation.
• Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): Comey firing "disturbingly reminiscent of the Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate scandal &the natl turmoil that it caused."
• Rep. Anthony Brown (D-MD): "Termination of FBI Director Comey is highly troubling at best, or Nixonian at worst given he was leading Russia-Trump investigation. I renew my call for a special counsel & independent commission to fully and impartially investigate Russian interference in our elections..."
• Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) in a statement: "This is sadly reminiscent of the Saturday Night Massacre when President Nixon fired Justice Department officials that threatened his presidency...Our democracy is in danger."

President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey suddenly on Tuesday evening, noting that his decision came on the recommendations of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy AG Rod Rosenstein. The reactions:

• Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Trump's firings of Sally Yates, Preet Bharara, and James Comey: "This does not seem to be a coincidence."
• Edward Snowden: "Set aside politics: every American should condemn such political interference in the Bureau's work. This FBI Director has sought for years to jail me on account of my political activities. If I can oppose his firing, so can you."
• Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): Comey firing "disturbingly reminiscent of the Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate scandal &the natl turmoil that it caused."

Former acting A.G. Sally Yates' testimony yesterday on Michael Flynn dominated today's briefing. When asked why Trump waited 18 days to fire Flynn following Yates' warnings, Spicer suggested that the administration didn't want to "jump the gun" on what Yates said since she is "a political opponent of the president." He also noted that Flynn had "an honorable career... the president doesn't want to smear a good man."

Former President Jimmy Carter revealed that he voted for Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary during an open discussion with Sanders at the Carter Center in Atlanta Monday.

"If we had 80% of people voting in this country, the Republican Party would be a significant minority," said Sanders, referring to high voter turnout for the French presidential election Sunday. "So we have got to get people involved." The 39th president then turned to the audience and asked: "Can y'all see why I voted for him?"

Carter endorsed Clinton in July 2016 after Sanders conceded.

Many journalists, scholars and political analysts have argued that Trump rallied support from the forgotten Rust Belt voters who felt economically disenfranchised, but new data from the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic suggest otherwise — those people actually voted for Hillary Clinton.

The stats: Among white, working-class voters (people without college degrees or salaried jobs), 64 percent voted for Trump, while only 32 percent voted for Clinton. But rather than being motivated by economic anxiety, Trump supporters rallied around his message of protecting the "American way of life" from foreign influence, as well as his rhetoric on the deportation of immigrants.

Why this matters: As The Atlantic points out, because Trump's campaign promise to protect traditional America resonated with voters, "Trump's policies, speeches and potential reelection could depend on the public's perception of how well he fulfills it."

Paul Ryan appeared on Fox News' Fox & Friends this morning — and he sounded optimistic about the Senate acting quickly on the GOP's "promise to the American people" by passing its version of the American Health Care Act, saying it might only take "a month or two."

The Trump administration may be using the criminal status of Haitian immigrants as part of its decision on whether to extend a program designed to allow safe harbor for those affected by the 2010 Haitian earthquake, per internal emails obtained by the AP.

The program: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (UCIS) — a branch of Homeland Security — can grant "Temporary Protected Status" to immigrants, legal or illegal, from countries affected by war or disaster, allowing them to remain in the U.S. indefinitely. There are currently 50,000 Haitian immigrants in the U.S. under the TPS designation.

Why it matters: In the past, the decision to extend a TPS designation was based solely on whether conditions in that country had improved; USCIS' acting director recommended last month that the program could expire, stating that Haiti's humanitarian crisis had ended despite its political instability. But the Trump administration's apparent willingness to consider the actions of a few wrongdoers to decide the humanitarian future of tens of thousands is a marked departure from prior U.S. policy.

The Washington Post's lead story, "U.S. is poised to ramp up Taliban fight," by Missy Ryan and Greg Jaffe, reveals one of the most consequential decisions that has yet faced this young administration:

• "Trump's most senior military and foreign policy advisers have proposed a major shift in strategy in Afghanistan that would effectively put the United States back on a war footing with the Taliban."
• "The plan comes at the end of a sweeping policy review built around the president's desire to reverse worsening security in Afghanistan and 'start winning' again, said one U.S. official."
• "The new strategy ... has the backing of top Cabinet officials." Trump's view is unknown.
• Why it matters: "The ... changes would ... reverse moves by ... Obama to steadily limit the U.S. military role in Afghanistan."
• "Trump is expected to make a final call ... before a May 25 NATO summit in Brussels."

The working group consisting of an ideologically diverse set of senators will discuss Medicaid in its third meeting today. While members will be able to bring up whatever they want to, one senior aide said they expect a "healthy focus on the expansion policy." Another aide said the conversation will be "free flowing."

Our thought bubble: There was a lot of brutal press coverage over the weekend regarding the $880 billion Medicaid cut included in the House bill, according to CBO's most recent estimate. Senators have surely been watching, including those like Rob Portman, Pat Toomey and Cory Gardner, all of whom represent states that have hundreds of thousands of low-income people newly enrolled in Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act expansion.

Check the photos above: The one with the pink sign was taken less than a month ago. The one with the black sign was taken last Thursday and given to us by the anti-abortion activist who met privately with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. Together, these pictures reflect the tightrope Manchin is walking as a Democratic Senator in a deep red state, who says he's personally anti-abortion but has voted both for and against defunding Planned Parenthood.

The Canadian National Post cites multiple government sources in saying White House staff reached out to the Canadian Prime Minister's office to get Justin Trudeau to call Trump and lobby for NAFTA in what the paper calls with some understatement an "unconventional diplomatic manoeuvre."

Why it matters: Trump decided against scrapping NAFTA after talking to the leaders of Mexico and Canada. That Trump officials put together the Canadian call, as the Post puts it, "highlights the difficulties faced by governments all over the world when it comes to dealing with a president as volatile as Trump."

Former deputy attorney general Sally Yates and former DNI James Clapper are testifying before a Senate subcommittee about Russian interference in last fall's presidential election.

The big thing: Yates confirmed that she had warned the White House counsel in January that Michael Flynn misled officials about his discussions with the Russian ambassador to the United States, in part out of fear that Flynn would be blackmailed by Russia.

• On Flynn: Yates said Flynn's conduct was "problematic," as was the fact that Mike Pence was unwittingly misleading the American people. She said she wanted to give the White House the opportunity to "take action."
• On leaking: Yates and Clapper both stated that they had never been an anonymous source to a reporter — and that they had not been questioned by the FBI regarding leaks.
• On not defending Trump's travel ban: "All arguments have to be based on truth. We're the Department of Justice, not a law firm...it was unlawful." She says despite being acting A.G. she learned of the order through media reports.

Yates' reasoning for telling the White House about Flynn:

"The underlying conduct that Gen. Flynn had engaged in was problematic in and of itself.""We felt that the Vice President and others were entitled to know that the information they were conveying to the American people was untrue.""We were concerned that the American people had been misled about the underlying conduct and what Gen. Flynn had done.""The Russians also knew what Gen. Flynn had done and that Gen. Flynn had misled the Vice President and others…that created a compromise situation — a situation where the national security advisor essentially could be blackmailed by the Russians."More live updates:

• Compartmentalized investigation: Clapper said in his opening statement that he was not aware of the FBI's investigation into Trump campaign associates' possible links to Russia until James Comey confirmed its existence to the House Intel Committee in March.
• A question from WH for Yates: "What does it matter if one White House official lies to another?"
• Yates sums it up: "Logic would tell you that you don't want the national security advisor to be in a situation where the Russians have leverage over him."
• Yates says she was not aware of any efforts by the White House to restrict Flynn's access to classified information.
• Changing the topic: Ted Cruz focused his questioning on everything from Hillary Clinton's emails to Yates' refusal to defend Trump's travel ban.

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Spicer said the warning Barack Obama gave President Trump about Michael Flynn did not give Trump any pause, and said any blame for flawed vetting should fall on the Obama administration.

• On Obama and Flynn: "It's true that President Obama made it known that he wasn't exactly a fan of General Flynn's, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone...if they were concerned why didn't they take any steps" to take away his security clearance?
• Was Trump suggesting that Sally Yates leaked classified info? "I think the tweet speaks for itself."
• Trump-Macron phone call: Spicer announced Trump spoke with incoming French President Emmanuel Macron over the phone.
• On the American citizen detained in North Korea: "We're going to work through Sweden that has an Embassy in North Korea."

With Dems fired up by the messy process and result of the House health care fight, everything on President Trump's agenda is likely to take longer than strategists had planned.

On the eve of Sally Yates' testimony before the Senate on her warnings about Mike Flynn, the President wants any of his staff who've been feeding negative lines about Flynn to the media to stop immediately.

White House officials have been eager to throw the former national security advisor under the bus, but a source familiar with the President's thinking says he still thinks highly of Flynn and has never authorized any of his staff to undermine the retired general. Trump still defends his former national security advisor and wasn't happy to see an Axios story Sunday afternoon saying administration officials have been attacking Flynn to reporters.