Below is the rush transcript for "This Week" on March 8, 2015. It may contain errors and will be updated.
STEPHANOPOULOS: We are going to turn now to the former Secretary of State General Colin Powell. He joins us now from Washington.
General Powell, thank you so much for joining us this morning.
What an extraordinary week for race relations in this country. We saw that report on Ferguson, of course, we saw that event in Selma yesterday. Your reflections.
COLIN POWELL, FRM. SECRETARY OF STATE: The event in Selma touched me very much because, you know, 50 years ago, I was stationed at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and I was also going back and forth to Birmingham, Alabama, during a very, very difficult time, and what that bloody Sunday event did for the nation was to hold up a mirror in front of all Americans and said, look, this is what's going on in this country. This cannot continue.
As Lyndon Johnson said at one point, you mean to tell me that soldiers coming back from Vietnam do not have the right to vote? This is wrong and has to be changed.
And so I think that Bloody Sunday catalyzed the movement to do something about our voting rights, and later that year, we got the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And I think Selma gave Lyndon Johnson and the Congress the power, the moral power to seek that legislation and to get it passed.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What's your take on, you know, one of the most passionate parts of the president's speech yesterday where he did take on those critics who say we're not making progress on race. The president outlined the great progress we've made, but also laying out what more needs to be done.
POWELL: Well, you know, we're always searching for that more perfect union that our founding fathers talked to us about.
We've made enormous progress. If we hadn't made progress, he wouldn't have been standing there, Eric Holder wouldn't have been with him and I wouldn't be here right now.
Things opened up. Law was changed and the barriers to advancement went away.
But we still now have hurdles that we have to get over.
I'm troubled by a number of things about -- with respect to some of the states trying to restrict voting by voter ID laws. Those are hurdles that we can get over.
And what I say to my friends in the African-American community, is whatever those states do, you meet the standards and then you make sure you register. You make sure you vote. You make sure you vote for the people who tried to put these barriers, these hurdles in your way and then you vote them out.
But ultimately, it's going to be the people who change this system and not just politicians or who the next president is. We, the people have the responsibility to make sure that all the people have an opportunity for a full and successful life in this wonderful country of ours.
STEPHANOPOULOS: How shocked were you by that report on Ferguson?
POWELL: I was shocked, but not that surprised, frankly, George. I know these things that existed in other parts of our country. This -- this shouldn't have been that great a surprise to any of us.
But it's not throughout the country. What we have to do now, then, is for all of the police departments, all of the mayors and county and other officials throughout the country, take a look in the mirror. See what you're doing.
Are you really arresting people just so you can get the money needed to run the government?
That's not right.
And are you doing it in a discriminatory manner so that African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and folks in the low income levels of the society are paying the price in order to sustain your government or the police force?
We also have to teach every police force that you have a responsibility to make sure that you are operating in a proper manner, try to use non-lethal means wherever possible.
We also have to tell our young people, when you're stopped by a police officer, stop and listen carefully and do not argue or fight. Let it resolve itself, especially if you've done nothing.
If you have done something, arguing or fighting with a police officer will just add another charge. And I think that's the way we have to make sure that our youngsters understand the situation that they're placing themselves in.
STEPHANOPOULOS: How about your own party's experience with race?
You are still a Republican, right?
I know you voted for President Obama.
A couple of years back, you spoke out about the dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the Republican Party on race.
Is that what you still see?
POWELL: I still see it. I still see it in the Republican Party and I still see it in other parts of our country. You don't have to be a Republican -- a Republican to be touched by this dark vein.
America is still going through this transformation from where we were just 50 of 60 years ago.
You have to remember, it was only about 60 or 70 years ago that we stood have -- still had poll taxes, that we still had literacy tests in order to vote, that the voting places were only open two days a month for African-Americans.
So we've come a long way, but there's a long way to go. And we have to change the hearts and minds of Americans. And I see progress, especially in the younger generation. When I speak to young kids, when I look at my own young grandchildren, they're not of that past, they're of the present. They're of the future. They understand the importance of diversity. They understand the beauty of this wonderful country of ours, with all the different shades of people we have in this country.
So we have to deal with this. We have to deal with making sure that everybody can vote and express their opinion, police forces are acting in a proper manner, citizens are acting in a proper manner with respect to the police forces and that governments and cities and states throughout the -- throughout the country are making sure that they are not discriminating against any particular part of their citizenry.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What's your take on the GOP field?
You worked for both President Bushes.
Could you see yourself supporting Jeb this time around?
POWELL: I always vote for the person I think is most qualified to be president of the United States of America. I know Jeb Bush very, very well. I think he's a very accomplished individual and we'll see who else is going to be running and I'll make my judgment based on what I think is best for the country.
STEPHANOPOULOS: OK. So we'll cut back to you on that later on.
But I do want to ask you one final question on this Hillary Clinton e-mail controversy. Which, of course, put you back in the news a bit this week, as well.
You were secretary of State during the early days of e-mails. You were one of the first secretaries, I believe, to set up a personal e-mail account. And you pushed to modernize the State Department's system.
Based on your experience, what do you make of these revelations this week and what would you recommend that she do now?
POWELL: I -- I can't speak to a -- Mrs. Clinton and what she should do now. That would be inappropriate.
What I did when I entered the State Department, I found an antiquated system that had to be modernized and modernized quickly.
So we put in place new systems, bought 44,000 computers and put a new Internet capable computer on every single desk in every embassy, every office in the State Department. And then I connected it with software.
But in order to change the culture, to change the brainware, as I call it, I started using it in order to get everybody to use it, so we could be a 21st century institution and not a 19th century.
But I retained none of those e-mails and we are working with the State Department to see if there's anything else they want to discuss with me about those e-mails.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So they want...
POWELL: (INAUDIBLE) have a stack of them.
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- they've asked you to turn them over, but you don't have them, is that it?
POWELL: I don't have any -- I don't have any to turn over. I did not keep a cache of them. I did not print them off. I do not have thousands of pages somewhere in my personal files.
And, in fact, a lot of the e-mails that came out of my personal account went into the State Department system. They were addressed to State Department employees and the State.gov domain. But I don't know if the servers the State Department captured those or not.
And most -- they were all unclassified and most of them, I think, are pretty benign, so I'm not terribly concerned even if they were able to recover them.
STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, Mr. Secretary, thanks very much for joining us this morning.
POWELL: Thank you, George.
***
STEPHANOPOULOS: And we are joined now by the mayor of Ferguson, James Knowles. Mr. Mayor, thank you for joining us this morning.
You know, that report so horrifying to so many, shocking in so many ways, and it leads to the question, how could you not know these kinds of practices were going on?
JAMES KNOWLES, MAYOR OF FERGUSON, MISSOURI: Well, I think it's important to recognize that the mayor and the city council in the city of Ferguson are part-time public servants who oversee, you know, we hire a professional staff to oversee and administrate on a daily basis what goes on in the city of Ferguson. And some of these things, these e-mails, absolutely we will not tolerate in this community. They showed some bias that is intolerable and those are things that we acted on immediately, but those are things that as the mayor, as the city council we don't monitor on a daily basis everyone's e-mails. And some of these practices, I think, that have come to light and some of these stories are new to many of us, especially at least the length in which the DOJ states that it occurred.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So now that you know about them, the question is what to do. Attorney General Holder said it might be necessary to dismantle the police department. Are you prepared to do that and to fire the police chief?
KNOWLES: I think what's important right now is that we go through every part of that report, find out where the breakdown was and the patterns and practices and these safeguards that we should have had in place and need to have in place to ensure that we protect the safety and the civil rights of everyone that comes to Ferguson and lives in the city of Ferguson.
You know, very few communities in this country have undergone this level of scrutiny, and the city of Ferguson has after thousands of e-mails have been examined, court documents, arrest records, we know what the issues are and according to the Justice Department with the city of Ferguson.
We're one of the few -- we're the only one in the St. Louis area who has undergone that scrutiny. We know how we can address those issues and we're committed to moving forward to make that happen.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So, what exactly are you going to do? Will the police chief keep his job? Will you implement the kind of recommendations the Department of Justice called for, increasing officer training, more partnership with the Ferguson community, prohibiting ticketing and arrest quotas?
KNOWLES: Well, some of those things -- you know, absolutely we're going to -- I think we can say immediately we're going to be working on improving training, improving some of the outreach to members of our community, to sections of our community, especially who feel underrepresented who have been underrepresented.
One of the things that we're focused on, which will be the only one and the first one in the St. Louis region, is to implement a civilian review board so that civilians can have input into the policies and procedures of the city of Ferguson Police Department but also review and take in complaints against the city of Ferguson Police Department so that elected officials like myself can hear these complaints, can see them come through and monitor this and the civilians will have an active role in that.
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