Colin Powell Says U.S. Moral Standing Hurt by Trump: ‘The World Is Listening’

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell made it clear to CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday morning that he absolutely will not vote for President Donald Trump in November, and part of his many, many concerns about the president is what he’s done to America’s moral standing in the world.

After talking about China specifically, Tapper brought up a Financial Times editorial about “America’s battered moral standing” and how they wrote Trump is “handing the world’s autocrats a propaganda coup.”

“Do you agree our moral standing as Americans is being battered because of the attitude President Trump has not only to our allies but to citizens protesting peacefully?” Tapper asked.

“Our moral standing has been demonized,” Powell said, “Not only the world is thinking — 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.”

“The world is listening and what are they hearing?” he continued. “They’re hearing we don’t like immigrants, we don’t want ’em 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 immigration policies, we ought to stick up for our minorities, we have 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.”

You can watch above, via CNN.