Powell reveals disgust with Trump, distaste for Clinton

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell revealed distaste for both US presidential candidates, but leveled his most pointed criticism at Republican Donald Trump in hacked emails leaked by a group American intelligence officials suspect is linked to Russia.

In an email to Reuters on Wednesday, Powell confirmed the authenticity of the thousands of hacked messages but declined further comment.

In one of the leaked emails, Powell, a Republican, called Trump "a national disgrace" and an "international pariah" who allied himself with racists questioning whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States.

"When Trump couldn't keep that up," Powell wrote in the hacked message, "he said he also wanted to see if the (birth) certificate noted that he was a Muslim. As I have said before, 'What if he was?" Muslims are born as Americans everyday."

As for Clinton, Powell said in another email that the Democratic former secretary of state was "greedy" and had "unbridled ambition."

A Gallup survey Wednesday showed Americans' trust in the media has sunk to a new low, and a bitter presidential race may be to blame.

The poll asking whether the media report the news "fully, accurately and fairly" found just 32 percent of Americans have a great deal or fair amount of trust, the lowest level in Gallup polling history and eight percentage points below last year.

"With many Republican leaders and conservative pundits saying  Hillary Clinton has received overly positive media attention, while Donald Trump has been receiving unfair or negative attention, this may be the prime reason their relatively low trust in the media has evaporated even more," Gallup said in its report