Fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe's headline-making interview on CBS' news magazine proved a TV audience grabber as well.
The program ranked as the third most-watched last week with 9.7 million people tuning in, according to Nielsen figures released Wednesday.
Viewership was down across the board during the Presidents Day holiday weekend, and the Sunday audience for "60 Minute" didn't approach its season average of 11.6 million. But McCabe's memoir "The Threat," about the FBI and the Trump administration, topped Amazon's best-sellers list the day after the interview aired as part of a media blitz for the book.
He told "60 Minutes" that a "crime may have been committed" when President Donald Trump fired James Comey as FBI director in 2017 and tried to publicly undermine an investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.
McCabe also said the FBI had good reason for a counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump was in league with Russia, and therefore a possible national security threat. McCabe, fired from the Justice Department last year after an internal probe into a news media disclosure, denied he intentionally lied and said his firing was politically motivated.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the interview Sunday night. Trump has repeatedly shared his views, including in one tweet in which he called McCabe "disgraced" and said "now his story gets even more deranged."
CBS won the weekly network ratings contest as viewers also devoted time to the network's "NCIS" and "The Big Bang Theory" and their spinoffs, Nielsen said.
With six of the top 10 shows and 13 of the most-watched 20, CBS had an average of 6.3 million weekly viewers. NBC had 5.2 million, ABC had 3.8 million, Fox had 3.6 million, Univision had 1.4 million, ION Television had 1.3 million, Telemundo had 1.3 million and the CW had 880,000.
Fox News Channel was the week's most-watched cable network, averaging 2.5 million viewers in prime time. TNT had 2.3 million, MSNBC had 1.9 million, ESPN had 1.4 million, HGTV had 1.35 million and History had 1.3 million.
ABC's "World News Tonight" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 9.4 million viewers. NBC's "Nightly News" was second with 8.8 million, and the "CBS Evening News" had 6.7 million.
For the week of Feb. 10-17, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: "NCIS," CBS, 13.4 million; "America's Got Talent Champions," NBC, 10.5 million; "60 Minutes," CBS, 9.7 million; "FBI," CBS, 9.5 million; "Blue Bloods," CBS, 8.9 million; "Chicago Med," NBC, 8.7 million; "Chicago Fire," NBC, 8.5 million; "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 8.3 million; "The Masked Singer," Fox, 7.9 million; "Young Sheldon," CBS, 7.7 million.
ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox is owned by 21st Century Fox. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court on Friday ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia.
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million), a statement said.
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi headed an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).
Ukraine is trying to root out corruption that has long dogged the country. A dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.
That has caused embarrassment and unease as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to help fight Russia’s army, and the European Union and NATO have demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.
In Ukraine's capital, doctors and ambulance crews evacuated patients from a children’s hospital on Friday after a video circulated online saying Russia planned to attack it.
Parents hefting bags of clothes, toys and food carried toddlers and led young children from the Kyiv City Children’s Hospital No. 1 on the outskirts of the city. Medics helped them into a fleet of waiting ambulances to be transported to other facilities.
In the video, a security official from Russian ally Belarus alleged that military personnel were based in the hospital. Kyiv city authorities said that the claim was “a lie and provocation.”
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that civic authorities were awaiting an assessment from security services before deciding when it was safe to reopen the hospital.
“We cannot risk the lives of our children,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold online talks Friday with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has been the key international organization coordinating the delivery of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said late Thursday that the meeting would discuss how to turn around Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s forces have gained an edge over Kyiv’s army in recent months as Ukraine grappled with a shortage of ammunition and troops.
Russia, despite sustaining high losses, has been taking control of small settlements as part of its effort to drive deeper into eastern Ukraine after capturing the city of Avdiivka in February, the U.K. defense ministry said Friday.
It’s been slow going for the Kremlin’s troops in eastern Ukraine and is likely to stay that way, according to the Institute for the Study of War. However, the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar is vulnerable to the Russian onslaught, which is using glide bombs — powerful Soviet-era weapons that were originally unguided but have been retrofitted with a navigational targeting system — that obliterate targets.
“Russian forces do pose a credible threat of seizing Chasiv Yar, although they may not be able to do so rapidly,” the Washington-based think tank said late Thursday.
It added that Russian commanders are likely seeking to advance as much as possible before the arrival in the coming weeks and months of new U.S. military aid, which was held up for six months by political differences in Congress.
While that U.S. help wasn’t forthcoming, Ukraine’s European partners didn’t pick up the slack, according to German’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks Ukraine support.
“The European aid in recent months is nowhere near enough to fill the gap left by the lack of U.S. assistance, particularly in the area of ammunition and artillery shells,” it said in a report Thursday.
Ukraine is making a broad effort to take back the initiative in the war after more than two years of fighting. It plans to manufacture more of its own weapons in the future, and is clamping down on young people avoiding conscription, though it will take time to process and train any new recruits.
Jill Lawless contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Ukrainian young acting student Gleb Batonskiy plays piano in a public park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
