Colin Powell got brutally heckled on live TV by an anti-war protester

Powell was on hand to discuss the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture when, off camera, an angry heckler interrupted the taping, visibly startling Powell, and his CBS hosts.

“You know better Colin Powell! You know better, alright?” the man could be heard shouting. “As a black man in America, you dropped bombs on Iraq.”

As Secretary of State, Powell was instrumental in helping sell President George W. Bush’s plan to invade Iraq—a move based on false and misleading evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the terrorist attacks of September 11, as well as the subsequently debunked claims that he was in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Powell’s presentation of the American case for war to the United Nations, which was filled with shoddy intelligence and false assertions, became one of the most notorious moments in the history of the war effort.

“Is he one of yours?” Powell asked CBS This Morning host Gayle King, as she shifted in her seat, presumably to watch the heckler.

“He is definitely not one of ours,” King replied, “but he’s coming up here to harass the show. Live TV.”