Hillary Clinton said Wednesday she had told 2020 Democratic candidates they could still lose to Donald Trump because of Russian election interference, even if they run the "best campaign."
Clinton spoke at length with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow about Attorney General William Barr's testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Robert Mueller report on the Russia investigation. Clinton said she had met with most of the large field of 2020 Democratic candidates and advised them the Russians could still undercut them on behalf of Trump.
"I met with most of the candidates who are running this time and answered their questions," Clinton said. "I always tell them, you know, you can run the best campaign. You can be the person who gets the nomination, but unless we know how to protect our election from what happened before and what could happen again, because there is greater sophistication about it, you could lose. And I don't mean it to scare anybody, but I do want every candidate to understand that this remains a threat."
"That they could lose at the hands of a foreign power, not that they could lose fair and square," Maddow said.
"That's right, that it wasn't on the level," Clinton said. "It wasn't on the level in 2016. It could be once again not on the level, because we have never really understood as much as we need to, and I think the Mueller report didn't go there. That wasn't what they thought their charge was. And since there is no, you know, like 9/11 commission to figure out what it is that happened. So how we prevent it should be the priority of everyone. I worry a lot that there's a greater sophistication. They've learned some things that they now are going to deploy against us, and us means the country, not just Democrats."