Former acting Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile voiced her agreement Tuesday with Hillary Clinton’s judgment that President Donald Trump was not legitimately elected in 2016.
MSNBC host Chris Matthews said it was "confounding" that Clinton would call Trump’s election illegitimate, but Brazile said Clinton is right to draw attention to Russian interference. Matthews pushed her to say whether she actually agrees with Clinton, and Brazile continued to express doubts about the election.
"Donald Trump cracked the blue wall," she said. "He was able to win votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, but, yes, I do believe Secretary Clinton is making a very important point. The role of social media, this coordination between WikiLeaks and possibly the Trump campaign—we need to get to the bottom of it."
Matthews pressed her to say whether she agreed with Clinton, and Brazile answered in the affirmative.
"My personal view is that it was not a legitimate election," Brazile said.
Matthews expressed shock and asked if that meant the election does not count. Brazile answered by asserting the theory that George W. Bush’s election over Al Gore was rigged by the Supreme Court.
"Chris, remember, I [was] the campaign manager of Al Gore in 2000, where, as you well know, the Supreme Court decided," Brazile said, referring to the Court’s decision on the Florida recount. "This election will always have an asterisk by it, and that's why I think Donald Trump should take steps as president to clean up our system so that no more foreign governments, no foreign meddling occur in the future."
Matthews pushed back against the assertion of illegitimacy by saying that is a third-world term and Clinton should never have used it. Brazile replied that she is not interested in semantics but in the "headwind" Clinton faced.
"I agree on that point, but you're arguing semantics when I want to argue that there was some big issues, big problems, and she faced a significant headwind in 2016," Brazile said. "I think what she means when she talks about legitimacy, she's talking about the foreign interference and meddling and what I describe in my book, Hacks."
Brazile’s book made waves for its accusation that Clinton had control over the DNC that helped her win a difficult primary against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), even as Brazile backtracked about whether the primary was "rigged."