VIDEO: Colin Powell on Donald Trump: The US Constitution Starts With ‘We The People’ Not ‘I the President’

TRANSCRIPT:

We have this situation in Washington with the preliminary investigation being done by the House of Representatives under Mrs. Polosi and you just got to ask yourself where does this all go. Well it’s going to go the constitutional way. She is following the Constitution and the law and she’s created an organization within the House of Representatives to look into these things. And that’s what we ought to do. But it’s hard to look into it when the other side in the White House is cursing out everybody calling a member of Congress a traitor calling a guy who wrote this that he’s there’s something wrong with him.

He didn’t write it. We had a lawyer write it for him or he she does this. He’s a spy. No he’s not a spy. He’s an intelligence officer somewhere in the United States government who sat down and wrote this out. He didn’t slip it to a newspaper. He didn’t go on television and discuss it. He put it into the system like he was supposed to do. You think he’s a patriot. Sure he is. I mean the only reason he’s not a patriot this you know I used to see some of these things when they came in and over this over the transom through the objection means of getting something up.

And I think he is a patriot. I don’t see anything to suggest he is doing anything that is improper. And as you know his paper has now come out after going through all the channels. He didn’t break free and go talk to the press. He let the system handle itself and the paper that he put out has a lot of consistency with some of the things that the White House put out. So what we need to do is I hope get this investigation this inquiry done as quickly as possible. And let’s stop screaming at everybody and cursing people out cold calling people traitors and calling them spies and using all of these names of depredation when all we’re trying to do is find the answers so let’s cooperate with each other in this in the Congress and get an answer to it and move on.

Do you think Nancy Pelosi is doing the right thing.

Absolutely. And I think it’s very interesting in listening to her when she talked about this I thought she was very measured and serious and talked about the Constitution and saw it as a process. I think it wasn’t easy because I think that nothing is easy in terms of making a decision like that. But I think she respects the institution. I think we both have talked about the importance of the institution and the Constitution. There is it’s set up in a way that Congress has a responsibility here. And I think the question is the one you asked what was this phone call about.

It is possible that a president will make a mistake in talking to some other leader on a issue that is state managed which is why in fact you have other people on the phone and you can say you might want to have worded that differently and have somebody follow up. This had nothing to do with state business as far and I know nobody kind of said anything about it except this man or woman that has been the whistle blower you know calling what do you think the Republican Party’s responsibility is you’re a lifelong Republican.

You were right to say that.

Well let me put it differently. The Republican Party desperately wanted you to be its presidential candidate in 1996 or less naturally that Okay you let me drive that I. Know you like you were a very important figure in the Republican Party. Guess what’s there. I’m actually right I’m not going to argue the the case but. As such an important Republican. Do you worry that the party is putting putting party or maybe even from before country. Let me start by saying I had no political affiliation during my first 35 years in government and the army as a career military officer had no party and it was only when I left.

And there was attention being given to me about running for politics that I said No it’s not me. And I identified myself as a Republican but also made it clear to people that I was Republican who was Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser I was a Republican who worked for George Herbert Walker Bush and worked for George W. Bush. I’m a moderate Republican who believes that we should have a strong foreign policy strong defense policy but we have to look out for our people and we ought to work hard to make sure we’re one country one team and so on that basis I call myself a Republican but in the state of Virginia you’re really nothing you can be anything you want any day of the week.

What do you think. Do you think that to answer your question the Republican Party has got to get a grip on itself right now. Republican leaders and members of the Congress both Senate and the House are holding back because they’re terrified of what will happen any one of them if they speak up what will they lose a primary. I don’t know why that’s such a disaster but they lose the primary. And so they think not. They need to get a grip. And when they see things that are not right they need to say something about it because our foreign policy is a shambles right now in my humble judgment and I see things happening that are hard to understand.

A couple weeks ago the president. Put a circle around southeast Alabama. Saying that’s gonna get hit by a hurricane. We put it on top of the Meteorological Prediction and the media at all just said no no no no no. And in my time in her time one of us would go into the presidency as president he screwed up so we’ve got to fix it and we’ll put out a correction. You know they did this time. They ordered the Commerce Department to go out and back up whatever the president said.

This this is not the way the country is supposed to run. And Congress is one of the institutions that should be doing something about this. All parts of Congress the media has a role to play. We all have a role to play. We’ve got to remember as. Got gotta remember that all of these pieces are part of our government. Executive branch Congress Supreme Court and the Fourth Estate. We’ve got to remember what the Constitution started with. We the people not be the president.