w bush. he was a, he was largely a hero of that along with other other general sort of looking at it and then pulling out us forces. when then later, the 2nd walk war came in after 911. and you know, the debate in 2003 doors, w bush brought him into van. and i think it's one of the most controversial moments in colon power life was being used to sell that war to sell that war to allies, to sell that war to the american public. because he had a volved is one of the most trusted americans in the world. and i'm just interested if you ever talk with him deeply about that moment in which we now know. in hindsight, the material that he presented at the united nations was deeply flawed. deeply wrong that they've been duped by a and intelligent sort. name curveball i be interested in, in what your thoughts are about that, that i'm trying to figure out how this guy became such a pawn in that moment. well, let me go back just a little bit to when he was terms of the joint chiefs which was under bush se

bush. after working under three republican presidents, general powell made headlines in 2008 when he endorsed barack obama for president just two weeks before election day. earlier this year, general powell said he no longer considered himself a republican following the january 6 insurrection at the capital. general colin powell died on monday. his family said he died from covid-19 complications. he was struggling with parkinson's disease and multiple myeloma. to talk more about his life and legacy, we are joined by two guests. roberto, author of "forgetting." he has closely tracked general powell's history. we are joined by a professor at howard university. he is the author of many books including "colin powell and condoleezza rice: foreign policy in the century." if you can talk about the legacy of colin powell. >> thank you, amy. powell is a complicated political figure who leaves a complicated legacy. as you outlined in your introduction, powell has a rise from the bottom that captured

bush. so influence othever decades of american leadership. >> it won't be mentioned a lot, he was a white house fellow. as a younger officer, it's a program that very few get to go to. he was pulled into the white house and i think worked at office of management and budget and he learned several lessons that he taught my generation. when you come to the pentagon or when you deal with the other services or with congress, you have to influence them with their language. i remember him telling me one time, he said you know, you have to make, you have to learn to describe your problems in a way that others can understand that are not in the army. don't make your problems, think that your problems and your charges are the biggest things that are going to affect congress. you have to talk to them in your, in their voice to help influence them to help you solve some of your challenges. that's the kind of mentor he was. i remember one time working with general freddy franks and we were called up to

yes, i did go with bush. yes. those thanksgiving pretty. >> in between the - >> there was a desert and there's lots of sand and he was pumping up the troops and yes. when was that, that was - >> in the fall of 90. the war began in january of 91. >> and later elizabeth we went with hillary and bill to visit the troops trade. >> you also had an encounter. that was in nicaragua when he was in power pretty. >> as i recall, that was more of a confrontational meeting. not as bad as another but i met with him a couple times and he was well, he or we didn't understand him. i guess i was still there because we're trying to do something thousand joe biden was holding me. but he had the dining room there and we are in the next room and we were there for lunch it was about 11:00 o'clock we were there with the ambassador in about 11, after a long heated discussion the dining room doors closed so we knew the meeting was over. the ortega meeting, one who went with me then rated but obviously we work starting ortega. was that in

one guy who almost lost his arm think that bush is great. and bush had us down there three times. in the last time spent two hours visiting with all of them and is pretty hard to beat. that history will have to judge these strikes and why the whole world said they have to have these wmds and they didn't and was ith it. hillary mentioned that she would be entering in republicans like colin powell and he's a great guy to talk to him and 96 i didn't ask him because in it with answer would be an out of his house, and they had a little reception for me in this little room and i talked about my race and the economy is good in all of that and i looked up at him. and i said are you going to wish me luck and in other words don't ask me the question of being your running mate. >> but what even your first choice. >> oh yeah. they weren't ready for barack obama yet and is great in the guy is powell wasn't thank you so much stronger than obama and he was running in the polls in iowa. >> he had i would say moderate conservative views. but she remembered at the convention that he talked about af

you know, the way billy bush was treated. that there was an attempt to get a short-term gain, just like get rid of him, but a long-term damage that was done as a result. it took years for billy bush to find work again. and now he's the host of "extra." he says on instagram tonight, "i have a plan to use this experience to help heal the culture." and i'm really curious what he means by that. with the five years that we've had since. but in the meantime i think when we look back at that night five years ago, don, we can see even more clearly what an injustice this was and what an upside down world this was, that billy bush was the one that suffered from all of this and donald trump benefited. and it reminds me that those of us in the media, we do need to work to call out indecency. indecency is not partisan. it's not left or right. it's about right versus wrong. and five years from now, you know, i hope we're not having these same conversations. i hope we've made progress as a society so we're not having the same conversations

to iraq and president bush decided to go after saddam hussein. gen powell: i said, you become responsible for 20 million iraqis who are going to stand there looking at us. you take a great responsibility and you want to do that? we were private when we had this conversation and he said, well, what is the alternative? i said, the alternative is to have the u.n. be in the first position. they are the ones who violated the resolutions. let's have a diplomatic approach. david: president bush said, i agree going to the u.n. and convincing them. gen powell: he did. he wanted to present our case to the united nations publicly. on a thursday afternoon i was with him. he said, will you take the case next tuesday? david: you made the case saddam hussein had, or we thought he had, weapons of mass destruction. it turned out he didn't. did you think you are embarrassed by that or the u.s. was embarrassed or had we known he didn't have weapons president bush would have gone ahead anyway? gen powell: he would not have gone ahead. i asked in that specific questi

bush and al gore. the first nomination that george bush announced was colin powell as secretary of state. it was a divisive period for the country. the recount went on and on. bush won as a result of a supreme court ruling. the first thing he did was trying to bring the country together with colin powell. he brought people together. it was more than symbolic. it was deliberate to make colin powell the first person in the cabinet and he was a uniter, not a divider. only colin powell could have been that first because he had the ability to bring people together. >> dana: ari fleischer, thank you so much for your time this morning. you knew colin powell and were able to see him up close to see how he conducted his life and of course we have his 13 rules of leadership that we can all reflect on as well. thank you so much. one of those 13 rules is to share the credit and remain calm and be kind. he also says to have a vision but to be demanding. and from the people that i know that worked with him most clos

during george w bush's presidency. it was a tenure during which powell did the one thing that ultimately damaged his reputation. arguing for the invasion of iraq in 2003 before the un security council acts and iraq's behavior show that saddam hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction. the evidence of powells case turned out to be false. powell accepted responsibility for helping to lead the country into what he later called an unjustified war. deeply regret that the information, some of the information at all that some of the information i presented with for the multi source was wrong. and it is of a lot on my record. but yeah i, there's nothing i can do to change that blot over time paddles regret turned into disillusion with the republican party. he endorse democratic presidential candidate barack obama in 2008. the visibility will expire because of the inclusive nature of his campaign because he is reaching out all across america. he gave similar reasons for back

during next administration president george herbert walker bush made him chairman of joint chiefs of staff, highest military position in the defense department. again powell was first african- american to hold the post. operation desert storm in 1991 made powell an even more familiar face. >> our strategy to go after this army is very simple. first we will cut it off. >> reporter: when he retired from the army powell wrote his autobiography and shared america's promise, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building character in young people. there was speculation he might run for president but his wife alma was against it. powell was called upon by george w bush. >> i am honored to be given the opportunity to return to public service as a 65th secretary of state. >> reporter: initially opposed to the idea, powell agreed to go along with the bush administration's plan to forcibly overthrow saddam hussein. using his greatest asset, his popularity with the public, he went before united nations and the world to build a ca inding >> sadm sseiand his regime are concealing efforts to produ

bush was the governor of texas sure jeb bush his brother the former governor of florida who been working to cultivate relationships with latino overlong period of time i was in the same thing about richard nixon thinking about george h.w. bush, ronald reagan and the same thing about democrats even barack obama and bernie sanders he did really well among latinos in the primaries. joe biden did not have a natural connection historically, personally, and so i think that led him and many around him to push off recruiting latinos until after the democratic convention 2020. and that did not work out terribly well for him. >> we do know the bush family, george w. bush, they have latino representation in their family. there is hispanic representation there. as a route leading up into the 2020 election in the candidacy for donald trump, did it seem -- to be worried is not a good word but looking at some of these inroads that republicans were making with hispanics over the years? was there any fear that could have eroded because the messaging coming out of the trunk campaign? >> among republicans

in the middle of the bush, there are no petrol stations to top off as income. eugene has sold off 10 places to passengers on top of his truck. there's no bus service. and once again, he decides what the fees are. $20.01 way a i was like with that like to keep them before each trip. eugene hands over a fistful of money to domingo who handles the petty cash to cover his meals and for any contingencies along the way. congolese frank is a congolese frank. with less a quote and i wasn't really when douglas a modem with it without vin, give me a window of this movie. well, my life doesn't mid afternoon. skin is mitigating home with them. i am with 4 days of torture for those who have put their trust in eugene's truck nickname. the fact chair warthog after the animal that lives in the bush for the 1st 50 kilometers, the road is paved. what hog trundles along at a steady 40 kilometers an hour later, the road becomes a dirt track. more town. it's just villages and the average speed drops to betty 20 kilometers an hour. the going gets tough. incredibly, the road was once actually paved for dec

bush is elected president and calls you and says, i would like you to be secretary of state. colin: i sensed he was the kind of republican i would want to be, and so i was pleased to go back into the government and serve my country once again. david: so you are secretary of estate and 9/11 happens. when did you realize that you would have to be involved and the government would have to be involved in some kind of military confrontation? colin: well, you can't let something like that go by without doing something about it, and my job was not to immediately get involved in military matters, but to pull the international community together. and it was a very rewarding experience. for the first time in nato's history they invoked what is called article five, which said if any member of the alliance is attacked, we are all attacked, so they were all on our side. david: subsequently, we turned our attention to iraq, and president bush decided that we would do an invasion of iraq to go after saddam hussein. colin: what i said to the president before that was, mr. president, you need

bush opened the u.s. military prison at guantanamo, where 779 men, in total, have been held, womanly without ever being charged. they were tortured, held in isolation and stripped of their rights. president biden is the fourth president to oversee guantanamo which is based at u.s. naval , base in cuba. today, 39 men remain, including at least 10 who have already been cleared for release but remain locked up. the military prison is only one part of the history of guantanamo. in the early 1990's, the u.s. held over 12,000 haitian asylum-seekers at guantanamo. on part of the base, the u.s. set up the world's first detention camp for refugees with hiv. now the biden administration is , considering once again holding haitians at guantanamo. nbc recently reported that the biden administration is advertising for a new contract to operate a migrant detention facility at guantanamo with a requirement that some of the guards speak spanish and haitian creole. today we look at the life and , legacy of michael ratner,

oh, the blue truck has to be moved out in the bush. it's all a matter of being resource with everyone has their own solution. however bizarre may want to go back to pick up on my unit. mm hm. i've been with a thought eventually a plan is agreed on by them. but if you mobile mobile, are you watching the spectacle on the fold? eugene is concerned. some of the passengers haven't any food. i wouldn't be monday when i some trucks have been stuck here for 11 days. don't want them all to while i'm on geo went to mcdaniel or see dr. munoz to remind you that even if i was going to buy or do i have like an auto this you don't, they don't want to lose comes out of water. if you didn't want to send it by new day, you know, they made the defendant and i swore lemming with despite the best efforts, eugene domingo and the rest of the drivers will remain stuck in the mud for another 2 weeks, a with journey that should have taken 4 days will eventually take the watauga a month, a month to cover the 650 kilometers to become a ah, the venezuela, columbia

in the middle of the bush, there are no petrol stations. to top off his income, eugene has sold off 10 places to passengers on top of his truck, there's no bust service. and once again, he decides what the fees are. $20.01 way or the whole. well what, what, what do i go over that with that? with that, i took you then, before each trip eugene hands over a fist full of money to domingo who handles the petty cash to cover his meals and for any contingencies along the way. congolese frank is a congolese frank, a less. i don't know why somebody. when douglas, a lot of them that they will go with well, my life to him with them. i am with 4 days of torture for those with put that trust, a new jeans truck nickname the fuck or share war. talk after the animal that lives in the bush for the 1st 50 kilometers the road is paved. would hold trundles along at a steady 40 kilometers an hour. later the road becomes a tow truck. no more town. it's just villages. and the average speed drops to barely 20 kilometers an hour. but the going gets tough with incre

bush and george w. bush but for him to rise up and become a friend of a president from a junior officer to a friend of a president told you about the power of the person. >> one of the things that general powell never forgot was that he knew that he was breaking ground, that he was an african-american that was making history and he did it in a very kind of understated way. he didn't jump up and down and make a lot of noise about it, and -- and one of the things about being in weese and black professional circles is that it's a small circle. it's very intimate, and so there are many different occasions whether people are rubbing each other, ribbing each other about which fraternity or sorority you're with or what school he went, to i mean, his connection to the community was always very strong and he never lost sight of that, one of the things that i -- i had an opportunity to do which was about three years ago to the day is interview powell with secretary albright together about a 90-minute university a

bush. evy time he had a new position, he was breaking new ground. kamala harris, mentioned the fact that he was someone that a lot of people in the african-american community, especially in the armed services, looked up to and saw as possibly a symbol of the best that the united states can bring. so really his career, both as a military man and as a civil servant, is part of his legacy. antony blinken talked about how his time in the military made him an even better diplomat, but his legacy, of course, as much as it is being praised, as much as the person himself has been praised, there is, of course, the stain of the iraq war. he himself has said it and acknowledged it in public, he has called it a blot on his record, remembering how difficult it was to see himself in that speech in front of the united nations, defending the invasion of iraq. he felt that that was a mistake and that he would never really forget, that it would forever stating his career. his illustrious career, despite that. monte: thank you for the update. we will stay with the sto

bush. so a fortunate timing to wor w with two presidents and support theie and administrations and the eents that occurred there. just gained those insights of two different ways of leading our nation. >> so let's talk about the history of camp david. the history begins really with franklin roosevelt. tell us why did fdr select that site and what did he like to do when he visited what was not calleded camp david at that tim but i'll let you talk about that. >> very good. thank you. let's go back to 1942. roosevelt loved going out on uss potomac. that was one of the presidential yachts. photo ntni right is the floatin museum in california today. but he loved to get away from the white house and secure his hobbies or interests or talk to world leaders and staff. about it was '41, '42 and so staff said sir, we can't go out on the yachtht any more. and he said find me a place that i could go to get away from the white ophouse. this is before a helicopter squadron existed to fly him away. he had

bush and bill clinton and became the secretary of state under george w. bush. will: there will be many conversations in the wake of this death honoring this man, this public servant, this human being, whose a professional soldier for 35 years we can reflect on his life and we should. there will also be conversations about the fact he was fully vaccinated, according to his family and he died from complications from covid. we are beginning to see statistics like this grow in frequency. we know the vaccine does wane overtime in its ability to protect you from not just transmission and infection but severe complications and hospitalization and obviously, death as well. we know it's beginning to spill over covid into the vaccinated population. again, collin powell in the direct age demographic that suffers the most from complications from covid, but i think everyone watching needs to be aware of limitations and protections and we have all offered ourselves through this pandemic in all of this our potential risk. ainsley: we've grown up with him he's been such a publ

nixon is ranked 32, 425, carter 24.4, reagan 18, bush 20.5. clinton 15, bush 36. we took the average ranking of all of these presidents it is 19. these presidents franklin roosevelt average ranking of 19 greatest. now why is that? is that the result of their individual flaw? well, to some extent sure. i have been very, very critical of jimmy carter. not out of any personal opposition to anything he tried to accomplish, but out of a criticism of his understanding of executive authority and its use of the powers of leadership. carter's ranking, as we softly slip back for a minute, not good 25 covid 19, 2726. pretty consistently mediocre. we can identify very specific reasons carter fell short of greatness that only he can be blamed for. one is the undermine the prestige of the presidency. prestige is key. how the president is viewed by people outside or rather how the president as viewed by people in washington, trying to determine how the public views and. that his teacher bargaining. i can convince people what he wants isn't his own interest. carter did not seem t

bush and was the nation's first black secretary of state. he passed away this morning as walter reed with complications from coronavirus. i'm harris faulkner. condolences filling up social media from all corners of the political landscape. many remember him as an american hero and calling it a sad day for our nation. earlier today defense secretary lloyd austin offered his own heart felt reaction. >> i lost a tremendous personal friend and mentor. i feel as if i have a hole in my heart just learning of this just recently. first african-american chairman of the joint chiefs, first african-american secretary of state, a man who was respected around the globe and who will be quite frankly it is not possible to replace a colin powell. >> harris: loved and respected by so many. robert will key former trump secretary who served with general powell in the bush administration and family friend of the powells is standing by. first david spunt is reporting live from the white house. >> colin powell's family made the announcement on facebook a little m

bush didn't get a second term. in my opinion it's just wrong that leadership has so much power today that it can dictate as opposed to lead and explain and making some of your colleagues and maybe you may have a different opinion. i'm looking at it from the outside seeing this developto the point where it is today . >> what does the filibuster mean for a state likenebraska ? >> the filibuster is designed to protect minority interests that would not otherwise be available. we can say that in the house of representatives obviously there's a difference between the states because it's apportioned on the basis of population. in the senate that's different. in the senate you have each state whether it's maine or nebraska or california or new york each has to but within the senate when you have caucuses and a partisan majority of one or the other, with the filibuster you have the opportunity to make things deliberate. it doesn't always work that way but it's there and when it doesn't work that way it's what the senate was

bush. so very fortunate on timing to work with two presidents, just gain those insights of two different ways of leading our nation. >> so let's talk a bit about the history of camp david. the history begins really with franklin roosevelt. he loved going out on the potomac to get away from the white house and just secure his hobbies, his interests and talk to world leaders and staff. but 41, 42 concerned about the uboat sightings and he said find me a place i can go to get away from the white house. of course this is before a helicopter squadron existed. you've got to find a place to drive nearby. interestingly because of the new deal bringing us out of the depression and part of the civilian conservation corp which put money back into the country and rebuilt a lot of the roads and parks there was this place called the recreational demonstration area also known as camp number three. roosevelt was given three sites nearby for visits. he went to all three. when he came to camp number three he

bush. president bush this morning says powell was such a fair of presidents that he earned the presidential medal of freedom twice. he was highly respected at home and abroad and most important, collin was a family man and friend. joining me now, kelly o'donnell at the white house. nbc's chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell. also with us, michael sing who served as assistant secretary to -- special assistant to powell from 2004 to 2005. he was a former senior director of -- and managing director of the washington institute. also joining us this morning, jack jacobs, medal of honor recipient and msnbc military analyst. thanks to all of you for being here on a day we're all remembering a towering figure in american history. kelly, you covered his career for decades. take us through what we're learning today about his death. >> well, what an extraordinary american life. and one that brings together people from a wide political spectrum who have admired his public service when yo

welcome back. bush, littlewood gill. another one we had them school cuz i needed to pay with ah, it's been decade since the fall of spain's fascist regime. but old wound still haven't tailed. your interest in going into a government that only shortened us because on the phone with nichol fee to market people to me. so i will said cutting me on the bus at the station. we notice that i just i think with thousands of newborn babies. what toned from their mothers and given away and forced adoption? they don't really bad about i used to yell for faster than my old robots. i feel that means it to this day mothers still search for grown children while adults look in hope for their birth parents. well the pendant mic no said you know born is just like to tease and you farish. as a merge we don't have with the we don't of a vaccine, whole world needs to take action and to be ready people are judgment. 2 common crisis with we can do better, we should be better. everyone is contributing each in their own way. but we also know that

the bush administration had essentially declared victory. so afterward, what american president, what general, what secretary of state wants to admit they're slowly losing the war that americans thought we had won and that was seen as a just cause? nobody wants to admit fail your, particularly in a situation like that. it started out as a reluctance to admit that things weren't going well, but the longer we were there and the deeper the dishonesty god where our leaders were saying we were making progress, that the strategy was working, that we were winning. the hole was dug deeper and deeper, and then it becomes much harder to admit the truth. there's some other reasons, too. i think in military culture, again, it's very hard to contradict the boss. you never want to show up your commander, and you never want to undercut or contradict the commander-in-chief. if you're a general or war commander and you start saying that things aren't going well, that's not what the president or the white house wants to hear. one episode in the book i go to i

bush who knew general powell as a trusted adviser to his own father, president bush 41 and to his own administration, and he talks about how he was a great public servant and was so relied upon by many presidents that he received the medal of freedom twice, and he goes on to say that he was a great family man and a friend. so speaking to him -- of him in both the personal terms and about his life of public service. i think what is so striking is that whether it was at the pentagon or whether it was at the department of state that sense of his to go to the ground level of troops and staff members to know what they were thinking and seeing as a mark of his own leadership to inform his leadership but also to validate the work of those who were serving their country in positions less than his own. and that is something that certainly has affected many of the people who have served him and part of why there's a great affinity and admiration for him and he has many people who have worked around him who will speak kindly of him not only today but for a long time to come. and of course we kno

it native mint and a few triples of bush honey.— of bush honey. it sounds absolutely _ of bush honey. it sounds absolutely glorious! - of bush honey. it sounds absolutely glorious! i- of bush honey. it sounds. absolutely glorious! i love porridge, i think i have it every single morning but i've never steamed my porridge oats. will you convert me to that? i hope so. i started doing it myself and, again, hope so. i started doing it myselfand, again, i hope so. i started doing it myself and, again, i have a steam oven at my studio and i just thought, what would happen if you just deemed oats for porridge? annie don't actually need to stir it when you do it that way —— — and you and it's quite easy and it can make a large batch ahead of time and keep it in fridge and just reheat it the next day on the day after that.— reheat it the next day on the day after that. there you go! all ou day after that. there you go! all you needed _ day after that. there you go! all you needed to _ day after that. there you go! all you needed to know - day after

i said to president bush, i want to tell you something. there is no question about how this word is going to turn out. now how many cash case we will have, -- i do not know how many casualties we will have, but we will be them. -- beat them. they were asking us to knock them out and we did. we did it and we got a lot more troops in the region then we might have needed. it was a given. it was over. we did not want to fight a war. the president said cindy secretary to talk about -- send the secretary to talk to the iraqis. we did not want a war. we just wanted to give the land back 28. -- to kuwait. at the time, there were predictions when the senate was voting on whether we should go to war, that we would have 10,000 american casualties. >> how many did we get? >> 400 of those were accidents. norm and i were thinking it might be in the neighborhood of 5000. some of the bakeshop in washington or saying it was going to be 15,000 to 20,000. we were catching flak from different parts of the congress. i knew it would not be that harsh. but i cou