Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta joins NBC's Chuck Todd for his first interview since the 2016 election. He declines to say that the 2016 election was "free and fair," and puts the blame on Russia for intervening to help Donald Trump. The contents of Podesta's Gmail account were released by WikiLeaks in the weeks leading up to the election.





CHUCK TODD, MEET THE PRESS: Do you believe this was a free and fair election?



JOHN PODESTA: Well, look, I think the Russians clearly intervened in the election, and I think that the-- now we know that the CIA, the director of national intelligence, the FBI, all agree that the Russians intervened to help Trump. They have noted this week.



And, NBC first revealed that Vladimir Putin was personally involved with that. So I think that people went to the polls, they cast their votes, Hillary Clinton got 2.9 million more votes than Donald Trump, but Donald Trump is claiming the electoral college victory, and tomorrow the electors will get to vote.



TODD: You didn't answer the question. Do you believe this was a free and fair election?



PODESTA: Well, I think it was distorted by Russian intervention, let's put it that way... A foreign adversary directly intervened in our democratic institution, and tried to tilt the election to Donald Trump. I think that if you look back and see what happened over the past few weeks, you'll see the way that votes broke. I was highly critical of the way the FBI director managed the situation with respect to the Russian engagement vs. Hillary Clinton's emails. I think that all had an effect on the election.