Hillary Clinton has come a long way since ... last fall.

The former secretary of state said Monday that she hasn't ruled out questioning the legitimacy of the 2016 presidential election. The way she sees it, it all depends on the degree to which the Russians interfered in the process.

This is a long way off from when she argued during the campaign that it was a "direct threat" to U.S. democracy to question the integrity of the election.

NPR's Terry Gross asked Monday, "[W]ould you completely rule out questioning the legitimacy of this election if we learn that the Russian interference in the election is even deeper than we know now?"

"No. I would not," Clinton responded.

"So what are the means, like, this is totally unprecedented in every way — " Gross began to say.

"It is," Clinton said.

Gross followed up, asking, "What would be the means to challenge it, if you thought it should be challenged?"

"Basically I don't believe there are. There are scholars, academics, who have arguments that it would be, but I don't think they're on strong ground. But people are making those arguments," Clinton responded.

The former secretary of state added, "You know, the Kenya election was just overturned and really what's interesting about that — and I hope somebody writes about it, Terry — the Kenyan election was also a project of Cambridge Analytica, the data company owned by the Mercer family that was instrumental in the Brexit vote."

Hold onto your hat. It gets pretty wild from here:

There's now an investigation going on in the U.K., because of the use of data and the weaponization of information. They were involved in the Trump campaign after he got the nomination, and I think that part of what happened is Mercer said to Trump, We'll help you, but you have to take Bannon as your campaign chief. You've got to take Kellyanne Conway and these other people who are basically Mercer protégées.

And so we know that there was this connection. So what happened in Kenya, which I'm only beginning to delve into, is that the Supreme Court there said there are so many really unanswered and problematic questions, we're going to throw the election out and re-do it. We have no such provision in our country. And usually, we don't need it.

This is quite fascinating, especially considering it was Clinton who argued last year that it was unconscionable to question the integrity of presidential elections. The former secretary of state came up with this line of attack after her opponent, GOP nominee Donald Trump, suggested he might dispute the election if it didn't go in his favor.

The Clinton campaign went on the offense

The Democratic nominee said during a presidential debate on Oct. 19, "We've been around 240 years. We've had free and fair elections and we've accepted the outcomes when we may not have liked them and that is what must be expected of anyone standing on a debate stage during a general election."

She added, "And let's be clear about what he's saying and what he means. He's denigrating—he's talking down our democracy. I for one am appalled that somebody who is the nominee of one of our major two parties would take that kind of position."

Her official Twitter account said later on Oct. 24, 2016: "Donald Trump refused to say that he'd respect the results of this election. That's a direct threat to our democracy"

That same day, during a stump speech in New Hampshire, Clinton claimed Trump was, "the first person, Republican or Democrat, who refused to say that he would respect the results of this election. Now, that is a direct threat to our democracy."

Later, during a rally at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, she said, "To say you won't respect the results of the election, that is a direct threat to our democracy."

"The peaceful transfer of power is one of the things that makes America America," she said, adding a little ding aimed at Trump, "Look, some people are just sore losers."

It's fair to question election results if there is evidence of tampering. It's amusing, however, that Clinton is making this argument now after explicitly saying the exact opposite during the election. It's doubly amusing that she has adopted Trumpian language (" people are saying"/"people are making those arguments," " I'm never gonna' rule anything out"/"I wouldn't rule it out"/) now that she is on the other side of the election integrity debate. This may or may not be on purpose. She has a funny sense of humor.

How far we have come.

From defending the integrity of elections to alleging a Mercer/Kenyan conspiracy. Who would have thought she'd go full The Dude this quickly?



