Former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday rebuked President Donald Trump for his response to nationwide protests, saying the President has “drifted away” from the Constitution in an exclusive interview with Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.” Below is the full transcript of that interview.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Joining me now, in a “State of the Union” exclusive, former Secretary of State and former Joint Chiefs Chairman General Colin Powell.
General, thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.
Let’s start right now with the extraordinary comments this week from several top former military officials, including former Secretary and Gen. Jim Mattis, condemning President Trump’s actions against protesters, his desire to have 10,000 active US military in the streets of this nation.
The President’s former Chief of Staff General Kelly said he agreed with Mattis. Retired General John Allen says the president’s threat to deploy US military against American citizens – quote – “may well signal the beginning of the end of the American experiment.”
Take a listen to what Allen told me Thursday.
LT. GEN. JOHN ALLEN, former US forces in Afghanistan commander: I never believed that the Constitution was under threat until recently. And I have concerns about that. We should all be attentive right now to how the rule of law is being administered in this country.
TAPPER: What is your response to what has been going on the last week, General?
COLIN POWELL, former US Secretary of State: Well, first, thanks very much, Jake.
I’m very happy with what General Allen said and all the other generals, admirals are saying and diplomats are saying. We have a Constitution. And we have to follow that Constitution.
And the President has drifted away from it. I’m so proud of what these generals and admirals have done and others have done.
But, you know, I didn’t write a letter because I made my point with respect to Trump’s performance some four years ago, when he was running for office. And when I heard some of the things he was saying, it made it clear that I could not possibly vote for this individual.
The first thing that troubled me is the whole birthers movement. And birthers movement had to do with the fact that the president of the United States, President Obama, was a black man. That was part of it.
And then I was deeply troubled by the way in which he was going around insulting everybody, insulting Gold Star mothers, insulting John McCain, insulting immigrants – and I’m the son of immigrants – insulting anybody who dared to speak against him.
And that is dangerous for our democracy. It is dangerous for our country. And I think what we’re seeing now, is (the most) massive protest movement I have ever seen in my life, I think this suggests that the country is getting wise to this, and we’re not going to put up with it anymore.
TAPPER: And former Defense Secretary General Mattis said – quote – “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people, does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us.”
It sounds like you agree with that.
POWELL: You have to agree with it.
I mean, look at what he has done to divide us. Forget immigrants, let’s put up a fence in Mexico. Forget this; let’s do this. He is insulting us throughout the world. He is being offensive to our allies. He’s not taking into account what our foreign policy is and how it is being affected by his actions.
So, yes, I agree with General Allen. I agree with all of my former colleagues.
And, remember, I have been out of the military now for 25 years. And so I’m watching them closely, because they all were junior officers when I left, and I’m proud of what they’re doing. I’m proud that they were willing to take the risk of speaking honesty and speaking truth to those who are not speaking the truth.
TAPPER: We have seen tens of thousands of protesters taking to the streets this week in opposition to racial injustice and police brutality.
What has been your personal reaction to this moment? Do you think that the country is in something of a turning point?
POWELL: We are in turning points.
I mean, the Republican Party, the President, thought they were sort of immune; they can go say anything they wanted. And even more troubling, the Congress would just sit there and not in any way resist what the president is doing.
And the one word I have to use with respect to what he’s been doing for the last several years is a word I would never have used before, I never would have used with any of the four presidents I have worked for: He lies. He lies about things. And he gets away with it, because people will not hold him accountable.
And so, while we’re watching him, we need to watch our Congress.
I watched the senators heading into the chamber the other day after all this broke, with the reporters saying, what do you have to say, what do you to say?
They had nothing to say. They would not react.
And so we’re not a country of just the President. We have a Congress. We have a Supreme Court. But, most of all, we have the people of the United States, the ones who vote, the ones who vote him in and the ones who vote him out.
I couldn’t vote for him in ’96 (sic), and I certainly cannot in any way support President Trump this year.
TAPPER: So, yes, I know you didn’t vote for him in 2016.
I assume, based on the fact that you approved Joe Biden when Senator – then Senator Obama picked him to be his running mate in 2008, I assume you’re going to be voting for Joe Biden?
POWELL: I’m very close to Joe Biden in a social matter and on a political matter. I have worked with him for 35, 40 years.
And he is now the candidate, and I will be voting for him.
TAPPER: Let me ask you. During the Rodney King riots in 1992, you counseled then President George H.W. Bush on a speech he was about to give.
You wrote about this very movingly in your book.
You wrote – quote – “I read it with dismay.” This is the first copy of the speech. “I thought the tone was all wrong. Yes, the rioting was criminal, and law and order had to be restored, but the violence had not incubated in isolation. It had deep social roots. The speech, as it stood, recognized only the former and ignored the latter.”
“Do the law and order bit,” you said, “but there is language here that is only going to fan the flames. Turn down the heat, I suggested. Get some reconciliation into the president’s message.”
And President George H.W. Bush did take your advice back in 1992. He talked about how he was disappointed that the cops who beat Rodney King had been acquitted, and on and on.
President Trump has been emphasizing law and order. Do you think that he is talking enough about reconciliation and empathy and what the people in the streets are calling for in his message in any way?
POWELL: No, he’s not in any way that I recognize. He always is shooting toward his base.
I remember the Bush conversation very, very vividly, because, at the same time, we had to bring law and order back into the streets. And we worked with the state of California, where it happened in Los Angeles, the riots.
And the President called me and said: “We may have to do something.”
I said: “Mr. President, go to the governor. The governor has the National Guard. And if the National Guard can’t do it, then you come back to me with a decision, and we will send in federal troops.”
And we did. And we brought things under control rather quickly.
But the President always followed the law, followed the Constitution, worked with the community. And we brought stability, finally.
It was a bad scene, but we got over it rather quickly.
TAPPER: Are you going – are you willing to campaign for Joe Biden for president?
POWELL: Well, I haven’t been asked, and I don’t think I will be. Campaigning is not my strong suit.
And I don’t – I will be speaking for him, but I don’t plan to make campaign trips.
TAPPER: We should note that, in addition to the role that you have assumed in American society, you also came in third in the Electoral College in 2016 because some rogue electors voted for you.
So, you’re actually the third-place finisher in 2016, even though you didn’t even campaign in any way then.
POWELL: That is true. I had to read it in a newspaper. And I called my wife: “Can this be so?”
And it was three electors in the state of Washington. And it was amusing. And I have clipped out the article, and I have clipped out the instructions that the House of Representatives put on there in their census. And it is now in my library at the National War College. So, it was charming.
The President kind of misrepresents what the final count was. I got three. I beat everybody else behind me. And it was amusing. But that’s all there was to it.
But three electors felt that they had the authority to change what they were planning to do. I think they have been fined for it.
But it is a symbol of the kind of system we have, a democratic system that our fathers thought through rather, rather carefully and thoughtfully. And now we will see how it works this year.
I think this year is going to be a different kind of year. We have done things that have offended just about everybody in the world. Our friends are distraught with us. We are down on NATO. We are cutting more troops out of Germany. We have done away with our contributions to the World Health Organization. We’re not that happy with the United Nations.
And just about everywhere you go, you will find this kind of disdain for American foreign policy that is not in our interests. And we have to get on top of this. We have to start acting seriously.
How can you say that we’re going to take troops out of Germany, but we’re also thinking of putting more in, and we’re going to create a new headquarters in Germany? That was a headquarters I commanded 25 years ago.
We have got to make up our mind of what we’re doing, but it seems to all come out of the White House, without consultation with our Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is not the way the system is supposed to work.
And until the President realizes that he needs to understand the Constitution, understand the restraints on him and his authority, and talk openly with his military authorities about what is the right thing to do, and not fire them when he doesn’t get the answer he likes.
TAPPER: I want to ask you about foreign policy, as a former secretary of state.
The Chinese government is under a lot of scrutiny for how it handled the coronavirus pandemic early on, as well as its recent anti-democratic crackdown in Hong Kong.
Two years ago, you said we shouldn’t create a cold war situation with the Chinese. Are we in one, do you think?
POWELL: We’re in a bad situation right now, because we’re fighting over things that I don’t think we need to fight over.
The Chinese did not do well at the very beginning of this virus crisis. But, at the same time, it was our intelligence community that was telling the administration, telling the president, beginning in December, through January, February, March, that we had this.
And the President wouldn’t respond to it. He kept trying to see if there’s somebody else to blame. And so, in order to get out of this, we are now blaming the Chinese for everything.
Our relationship with the Chinese during my time as chairman or my time as secretary of state was a healthy one. When they did things we didn’t like, we told them about it. But, more often, we were speaking to them as fellow individuals and a government that we could speak to.
I did a lot with the Chinese. Disagreed with them when they had to be disagreed with, but at the same time respected them and listened to what their point of view was right now, then.
And, right now, we ought to be listening carefully to what they’re doing in Hong Kong, and we should not take action that just infuriates the situation and makes the situation worse.
TAPPER: Let’s talk more – continue to talk more broadly about the role of the United States in the world.
The editorial board of “The Financial Times,” a leading newspaper in the U.K., wrote an editorial titled “America’s Battered Moral Standing.”
And they wrote, in part – quote – “Donald Trump is handing the world’s autocrats a propaganda coup. Never before has a U.S. president demonized in blanket terms those protesting against injustice. If China were to send its tanks into Hong Kong, would the world listen to what the U.S. Senate thought?”
Do you agree that our moral standing as Americans is being battered because of the way – the attitude President Trump has, not only to our allies, but to citizens protesting peacefully?
POWELL: Our moral standing has been demonized by what not only the world is thinking, but they’re just looking at us. They’re looking at these demonstrations. They see that these are demonstrations that are justified and not to be criticized.
They see that George, as the President called him, was murdered. And the president comes out and says: Well, George is looking down from heaven and blessing what I’m doing.
How can you expect anybody to believe things like that?
That’s the kind of language we see coming from overseas, and the overseas clients that we have, our friends and some of our adversaries, looking at how we’re taking care of our people. Are we insulting everybody? Are we going after immigrants? They don’t understand this.
I’m the son of immigrants. I wouldn’t be here if my parents couldn’t come here in banana boats in the 1920s.
This is America. This is who we are. And the world doesn’t understand.
TAPPER: President Trump said this week that it is common sense for Russia to be allowed to rejoin the G7 after Russia was expelled after it annexed Crimea in 2014.
What do you think of that? Should Russia be allowed to join – to rejoin the G7?
POWELL: Let me answer it this way.
Why is he making this decision all by himself at the same time that Russia has been listed as one of our four enemies that we have to be dealing with?
In reality, they’re not. They’re not one of our four enemies. As one Israeli prime minister said to me in a very simple way: “Colin, we have lost our enemies. Now all we have are problems. We have problems.”
And so we have a situation where the Pentagon has identified four enemies, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Not one of them is about to attack us right now. We’re spending huge sums. We need to get to those problems in Afghanistan, Somalia, elsewhere, and start to help solve those.
And so the world is listening. And what are they hearing? They’re hearing this, we don’t like immigrants. We don’t want them in. Let’s kick them out. We’re hearing that we don’t like so many of our ethnic people, the ethnic slices that America represents. We don’t like that.
And they speak out against it. It’s our strength. It’s been our strength for 200 years.
And we ought to stick up for our immigration policies. We ought to stick up for our minorities. We ought to put more money into lower-income classes of Americans. We need to get our kids educated, white and black, all of them get educated like I was educated in the public school system of New York. And I’m now in a graduate – graduate of a public college in New York, and have been rather successful with this public school education.
That’s the kind of education all of our young people should have. And it is a major priority in my lifetime and among my friends.
TAPPER: Last question for you, sir. And we really do appreciate your time today.
There are a lot of independent voters out there, or moderates, Democrats and Republicans, who might be concerned that the Democratic Party is drifting too far to the left. And they hear your comments about President Trump.
Why is it so important to you that President Trump not be reelected?
POWELL: Because I think he has been not an effective president.
He lies all the time. He began lying the day of inauguration, when we got into an argument about the size of the crowd that was there. People are writing books about his favorite thing of lying.
And I don’t think that’s in our interest. I didn’t vote for him in 2006 (sic). The situation for 2020, in my mind, in my life, has gotten worse.
Every American citizen has to sit down, think it through, and make a decision on their own. Don’t listen to the – everybody out there. Don’t read every newspaper. Think it through. Use your common sense and say, is this good for my country, before you say, this is good for me.
We have a lot of people who are earning great wealth. And when I have talked to some of them, they said: Well, gee, the economy is doing great. I’m doing great.
The economy exists for all of the American people, not just you doing great or me doing better.
So, what we have to do now is reach out to the whole people. Watch these demonstrations, watch these protests, and, rather than curse them, embrace them to see what it is we have to do to get out of the situation that we find ourselves in now.
We’re America. We’re Americans. We can do this. We have the ability to do it, and we ought to do it. Make America not just great, but strong and great for all Americans, not just a couple.
TAPPER: Retired Gen. Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, former secretary of state, we’re honored with your presence today.
Thank you so much, sir.
POWELL: Thank you, Jake.