A normally staid academic exercise at Harvard's Institute of Politics turned into an angry clash as a top aide to Hillary Clinton vented about the election and accused former Donald Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway of accepting support of coddling 'white supremacists.'

'If providing a platform for white supremacists makes me a brilliant tactician, I am proud to have lost,' fumed Clinton Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri, in just one angry dig at Conway as she referenced Trump's incoming chief strategist Steven Bannon, who previously ran Breitbart.com.

'I would rather lose than win the way you guys did,' Palmieri fumed.

Conway bristled at the accusation. 'Do you think I ran a campaign where white supremacists had a platform?' she asked her accuser.

'You did, Kellyanne. You did,' shot back Palmieri.

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Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and Clinton aide Robby Mook (above) traded barbs at a post-election forum held at Harvard University on Thursday night

Conway responded by going after Palmieri's boss, who was upended by Trump in Rust belt battlegrounds that she didn't identify until it was too late.

'Do you think you could have just had a decent message for white, working-class voters? How about, it's Hillary Clinton, she doesn't connect with people? How about, they have nothing in common with her? How about, she doesn't have an economic message?' Conway asked.

Conway was taking part in a post-election forum at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government alongside Robby Mook, Clinton's campaign manager, and her director of communications, Palmieri.

The forum featured angry clashes between Jennifer Palmieri and Kellyanne Conway

'Will you ever accept the election results?' Conway asked

At such exercises, the principles normally reveal strategies they couldn't share during the campaign, and sometimes bond with their counterparts over candidate stumbles and the like.

But this year's forum was different, after an angry election that still has both sides fuming.

Palmieri, who got choked up several times, slammed the Republican campaign manager who she said had given voice to hateful racists, fuming: 'If providing a platform for white supremacists makes me a brilliant tactician, I am proud to have lost.'

At one point, Conway accused the Clinton camp of being sore losers.

'Guys, I can tell you are angry, but wow,' she said. 'Hashtag he’s your president. How’s that? Will you ever accept the election results? Will you tell your protesters that he’s their president, too?'

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Joel Benenson, Clinton's chief strategist, conceded that they lost but warned the Trump camp: 'Let's be honest. Don't act as if you have a popular mandate for your message. The fact of the matter is that more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump.'

The two-day forum has been held after every presidential election since 1972, to provide a historical record of the race.

While the conversations are usually civil matters, the especially contentious nature of this year's election meant that the political operatives weren't quite ready to move on.

Palmieri threw a jibe towards Stephen Bannon, Trump's newly appointed chief strategist, who has been accused of racism. He was scheduled to attend the event but then dropped out at the last minute.

Conway replied defiantly, asking: 'Do you think you could have just had a decent message for white, working-class voters?

'How about, it’s Hillary Clinton, she doesn’t connect with people? How about, they have nothing in common with her? How about, she doesn’t have an economic message?'

She was tense when asked by an audience member for her response to the escalated number of hate-crimes occurring across America since Trump's win, however.

Earlier, Clinton's campaign manager Mook suggested she only lost the election because of the interference of the FBI days before polls opened.

Conway was tense as she faced questions over the rising number of hate crimes since Trump's election win

He lambasted not only director James Comey's decision to revive a dormant probe into Clinton's use of a private email, but slammed the media's coverage of the shock announcement too.

'Most over-reported, overhyped, over-litigated stories in the history of American politics,' was how he characterized the scandal.

Palmieri also blamed herself for 'legitimizing the way the press covered' the email scandal.

By the end of the election, Mook says the media 'by and large was not covering what Hillary Clinton was choosing to say'.

'They were treating her like the likely winner, and they were constantly trying to unearth secrets and expose,' Mook said.

'The happy warrior': Conway used the stage to gush praise over Trump who she said had struck a chord with American voters

Palmieri (left during the campaign) threw in a jab towards Trump's newly appointed chief strategist Stephen Bannon (right) who she said was an accused racist

While so much attention was being paid to Hillary's emails, not enough investigation was done on Trump's bankruptcies and failure to release his tax returns, Mook said.

Conway countered: ' Oh, my God, that question was vomited to me every day on TV.”

Mook also said the 'drip' feed of hacked emails from Wikileaks which had been stolen from Clinton's inner circle did not help her chances.

Blaming the cyber attack on Russia, as has been widely suggested by experts, he said: 'We cannot have foreign aggressors intervening in our elections.'

Conway said there was 'no proof' Vladimir Putin, a vocal Trump supporter, was behind the hack.

CNN's Jake Tapper hosted the heated event on Thursday night

But the Clinton camp wasn't the only one mad at the media's coverage of the election.

Trump's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said his issue with the media was that they took everything Trump said 'so literally'.

'The American people didn’t. They understood it. They understood that sometimes — when you have a conversation with people, whether it’s around the dinner table or at a bar — you’re going to say things, and sometimes you don’t have all the facts to back it up,' he said.

Conway agreed.

'There’s a difference for voters between what offends you and what affects you,' she said, referencing Trump's numerous political gaffs.

At an event the night before, staffers from the Republican campaigns heckled CNN Chief Executive Jeff Zucker when he was forced to explain his more than a year of wall-to-wall Trump coverage.

'To our credit, we learned pretty early on that something was resonating with Trump,' Zucker said. 'Look, we must have been doing something right' if both sides were unhappy with the coverage.

Zucker also claimed that Trump made himself more available than the other candidates for interviews.

That caused Jason Johnson, Sen. Ted Cruz's chief strategist, to pipe up.

'Bulls***' she told Vox. 'I can tell you for a fact that we requested a call and we were denied...And that’s on the record.'

Conway used the stage on Thursday to twist the knife further, describing Clinton as one of history's most 'joyless candidates'.

'I said to Mr. Trump, "You're running against one of the most joyless presidential candidates in history,"' Conway said. '"Why don't we find a way to be the happy warrior?"'

Another flaw in the Clinton campaign was to rely on national polls and take the votes of Obama supporters for granted.

'Joyless': The Trump campaign manager used the opportunity to twist the knife in Hillary Clinton too

She also credited Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic primary challenger, for helping 'soften up' Clinton and paving the way for Trump's victory.

She said political observers who predicted the race would go to Clinton 'ignored the phenomenon known as Bernie Sanders.'

Mook conceded that the Clinton campaign failed to perform as well as it should have among groups that were key to Obama's two victories, including suburban woman and young voters, some of whom he said were drawn to third-party candidates.

Conway essentially agreed, saying Clinton was unable to hold together the Obama coalition. She said the question wasn't whether voters were ready to elect a woman to the White House but whether they were ready to elect this particular woman.

Another Clinton failing was in presuming that people who voted Democratic before would do so again, Conway said.

But Mook said the Clinton campaign never took a win as a forgone conclusion.

'There were a lot of headwinds in this race,' he said. 'We were trying to make history.'

Conway continued to rail against the Clinton campaign when she appeared on Goof Morning America the following morning.