Madeline Albright, the Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton, and Colin Powell, President George W. Bush’s Secretary of State, spoke out against the current President on Fareed Zakaria GPS this Sunday.
Powell spoke harshly about Trump’s policies and statements, reiterating some of his feelings expressed in 2016, when he came out against voting for Trump.
“The world is watching,” said Powell. “They cannot believe we’re doing things like separating mothers and children who are trying to get across the border from south of our border. They can’t believe we’re making such an effort to cease immigration coming into the country. It’s what’s kept us alive!”
Both spoke out about hyper-partisanship and nationalism in the current political landscape, with Albright in particular hitting on the role social media has played.
“I do think we are in a very different era,” said Albright, “where, in fact, voices have been disaggregated so that people are getting their information through their social media. They see things from the perspective of what they already agree with.”
“People want to know what their identities are,” she added. “So, all of a sudden, there’s – we’re going to have great pride in identity, but if my identity hates your identity, then it’s not patriotism, it’s hyper nationalism and it’s very dangerous.”
Powell backed up Albright, saying, “We used to be the leader of the world that wanted to be free.”
“In recent years, the pressures and the forces that Madeleine talked about (have) come into play. They’ve come into play. And what are we doing? We’re walking away from agreements; we’re walking away from the alliances, frankly, that we used to have,” Powell added.
Powell also asked Congress — and all Americans — to “take a hard look at yourself” and to consider “what we are doing to try to keep these forces in check and put America back in the middle of all this.”
Watch the full interview here:
Image via screen capture from video source.