Donald Trump blasts Colin Powell after leaked email criticisms

There’s no love lost between Donald Trump and Colin Powell.

In one massive document dump Wednesday, Powell’s personal emails dating back to June of 2014 leaked online, giving the world an intimate look at just how the former secretary of state felt about the Republican party’s presidential nominee -- and Powell’s views were far from favorable.

In one of Powell’s more charitable emails, the former George W. Bush cabinet member noted that Trump “appeals to the worst angels of the GOP nature and poor white folks.” In other messages, Powell called the billionaire a “national disgrace” and an “international pariah” and blasted Trump for the birther movement he began with President Obama.

“Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,” Powell wrote in August of this year. “That’s what the 99% believe. When Trump couldn’t keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim. As I have said before, ‘What if he was?’ Muslims are born as Americans every day. The transcript thing was also racist. The President graduated Harvard and was editor of the Law Review. And now decades later Trump wants to see his transcripts to see if he should have been admitted. And for him to say yesterday that within four years he would have 95% of blacks voting for him is schizo fantasy.”

Trump’s response, as per usual, was a succinct tweet on Powell’s shortcomings.

Hillary Clinton, who Powell also criticized harshly in his personal emails, declined to comment on the hacked documents.

“I have a great deal of respect for Colin Powell, and I have a lot of sympathy for anyone whose emails become public,” Clinton said on Tom Joyner’s radio show Thursday morning. “I’m not going to start discussing someone else’s private emails. I’ve already spent a lot of time talking about my own, as you know.”

The former secretary of state further expressed her concern that DCLeaks, the website that posted Powell’s emails, had reported ties to Russian hackers.

“What I think is really important about the emails is the chilling fact, Don, that the Russians are continuing to attempt to interfere in our election,” Clinton said, responding to question from Don Lemon. “And I have to say I’m increasingly concerned by how we’ve seen Donald Trump’s alarming closeness with the Kremlin become more and more clear over the course of this campaign. It’s deeply concerning.”