George W. Bush weighs in on his 'sister-in-law': Hillary Clinton

In a wide-ranging interview that aired on CNN on Sunday, President George W. Bush was asked about his unlikely friendship with former President Bill Clinton, who Bush recently called his "brother from another mother."

That would make Hillary Clinton "my sister-in-law," Bush joked.

But what if his real brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, ends up running against her in a potential 2016 presidential election?

"I think he'd beat her," Bush said.

During the interview, which was taped late last week, Bush also discussed the decision by a Staten Island, N.Y., grand jury not to indict a white police officer officer in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man.

“I thought, 'How sad,'" the former president said. "The verdict was hard to understand, but I hadn't seen all the details.  But it's sad that race continues to play such a, you know, kind of emotional, divisive part of life. I remember back in when I was a kid, in the '70s, and there was race riots with cities being burned. And I do think we've improved."

Bush said he had recently had dinner with Condoleezza Rice, his former secretary of state, who experienced discrimination firsthand while growing up in Birmingham, Ala., during the civil rights movement.

"She just said you gotta understand that there are a lot of, you know, black folks around that are just incredibly, more and more, distrusting of law enforcement," Bush continued. "Which is a shame, because law enforcement's job is to protect everybody."

According to an NBC News/Marist poll released Sunday, 82 percent of African Americans say police apply different standards in enforcing the law based on racial considerations. Only 43 percent of black Americans polled said they had "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of confidence that law enforcement in their community would not use excessive force on suspects.

The 43rd president also weighed in on President Vladimir Putin of Russia, his former fishing partner.

“Well, I think he's become more zero sum — -type thinker," Bush said. "In other words, I don't — haven't talked to him in years. But it's almost as if he says that, 'If the West wins, I lose. And if I win, the West loses,' as opposed to, 'What can we do together to enhance our respective positions?'"