Former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell is putting his support behind Joe Biden.
“I’m very close to Joe Biden in a social matter and in a political matter,” Powell told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” Sunday morning. “I’ve worked with him for 35, 40 years. And he is now the candidate and I will be voting for him.”
But Powell, who served as secretary of State under President George W. Bush, isn’t planning on making any campaign trips for the Democratic presidential candidate, just yet.
“Well, I haven’t been asked [to campaign for Biden] and I don’t think I will be,” he added. “Campaigning is not my strong suit. I’ll be speaking for him, but I don’t plan to make campaign trips.
Powell, the retired four star General of the US Army, spent much of the interview ripping President Donald Trump for his actions and for his character, saying hie has lowered America’s standing in the eyes of the world. “We have a Constitution and we have to follow that Constitution and the President has drifted away from it,” Powell said.
This isn’t the first time Powell has strayed from his GOP roots. He also backed the Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate, in the 2016 presidential election.
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Powell, himself, received three electoral votes in the 2016 election — coming in third overall — after three electors voted for him, after originally backing Clinton. Powell was the nation’s first African-American secretary of State, as well as the nation’s first African-American national security adviser and the first African-American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Shortly after Powell’s comments Sunday morning, Trump took to Twitter to question some of the former secretary’s decisions during the Bush administration.
“Colin Powell, a real stiff who was very responsible for getting us into the disastrous Middle East Wars, just announced he will be voting for another stiff, Sleepy Joe Biden,” Trump tweeted. “Didn’t Powell say that Iraq had ‘weapons of mass destruction?’ They didn’t, but off we went to WAR!”
