Hillary Clinton doesn’t believe she or her campaign made any significant mistakes in the 2016 election. But speaking at the Code Conference on Wednesday, she had a long list of others she blames for her defeat. 
 
 She points the finger at Russia, fake news, the sorry state of the Democratic Party, sexism, and the media that covered the email scandal “like Pearl Harbor,” among others. 
 
 The Russian government 
 
 At the top of the list is the Russian government, which she believes orchestrated a vast campaign of fake news to discredit her candidacy. 
 
 “If you look at Facebook, the vast majority of the news items posted were fake,” Clinton told Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, editors of the Vox Media site Recode, which sponsors the conference. “They were connected to — as we now know — the 1,000 Russian agents who were involved in delivering those messages. They were connected to the bots that are just out of control.” 
 
 It’s not actually clear that “we now know” any of this. There was a lot of fake news swirling around Facebook in the closing weeks of the campaign, but I haven’t seen any evidence that it was the “vast majority.” The claim that there were 1,000 Russian agents spreading fake news comes from a March statement by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), but he described these as unconfirmed reports, not proven facts. 
 
 Clinton also notes that WikiLeaks released Clinton adviser John Podesta’s stolen emails — widely believed to have come from Russian hackers — within hours of the release of Donald Trump’s “grab ’em by the pussy” Access Hollywood tape. 
 
 Clinton speculated that the Trump campaign may have coordinated with the Russians to make sure the leaked information had maximum impact, arguing that it would have taken guidance from domestic political operatives to make sure the Russians released stolen documents at times when they would have the most effect. 
 
 Sexism 
 
 Clinton rejected the suggestion that giving six-figure speeches to Goldman Sachs and other special interest groups had hurt her candidacy. 
 
 She insinuated that the issue was tailored unfairly around gender: "Men got paid for the speeches they made, and I got paid for the speeches I made. It was used, I thought it was unfairly used, and all of that, but it was part of the background music." 
 
 She also downplayed the decision in general: 
 
 “I gave speeches to many, many groups,” she said. “I never thought that anybody would throw out my entire career of standing up and speaking out and voting against and voting in favor of what I thought were good policies because I made a couple of speeches.” 
 
 The media 
 
 Clinton blames the media for covering her email scandal — which she dubbed “the biggest nothingburger ever” — “like it was Pearl Harbor.” 
 
 She said she was hobbled by the sorry state of the Democratic Party at the time she won the nomination. 
 
 “I get the nomination, and I inherit nothing from the Democratic Party,” Clinton said. “It was bankrupt. It was on the verge of insolvency. Its data was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, wrong. I had to inject money into the DNC to keep it going.” 
 
 Democrats, she said, “are not good historically at building institutions, and we've got to get a lot better.” She added that “that includes content,” arguing that the media had not done a good job of explaining how Barack Obama had saved the economy from a major depression in 2009. 
 
 “I also think I was the victim of a very broad assumption that we were going to win,” Clinton said. “I was swimming against a historic tide. It's very difficult to succeed a two-term president of your own party.” ||||| Hillary Clinton on Wednesday broadly spread around the blame for her loss in last year’s presidential election, pointing to suspected Russian cyberattacks, the Democratic National Committee’s data operation and a “very broad assumption that I was going to win.” 
 
 Clinton, interviewed onstage in California at a tech conference by Recode’s Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, made a point to say that she took responsibility for her campaign and “every choice” she made, as she has in other public appearances this year. “But,” she said, “that’s not why I lost.” 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Clinton again argued that the letter former FBI Director James Comey sent to Congress about her private email server just more than a week before the election was what prompted her to lose critical ground at the end. 
 
 Comey wasn’t the only target of Clinton’s ire on Wednesday, though, as she assailed the news media for their coverage of the Comey controversy (reporters covered it like it was “Pearl Harbor,” she charged) and the campaign more broadly, citing a lack of substantive policy reporting on television. 
 
 The attitude toward her campaign, she posited, was a result of the assumption that she would defeat Donald Trump, and she said it hurt her. 
 
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 “I was the victim of a very broad assumption that I was going to win,” she said. 
 
 Clinton hit at the Democratic National Committee, too: The DNC, she claimed, handed her an inferior data operation when she won the party’s nomination last summer, while the Republicans had invested heavily in data infrastructure between 2012 and 2016. 
 
 On the topic of Russian interference in the election, Clinton described the hacks into the DNC and her campaign chairman’s private email account and various “fake news” websites as the country “weaponizing” technology in an unprecedented misinformation campaign against her. 
 
 And while she did not explicitly accuse Trump’s campaign of colluding with the Russians on the cyberattacks — a topic of ongoing federal investigation and something the White House has repeatedly denied — Clinton said she believes that the Kremlin had help from Americans in some form. 
 
 “The Russians, in my opinion ... could not have known how best to weaponize that information unless they have been guided ... by Americans,” Clinton said. 
 
 “I think it’s fair to ask, how did that actually influence the campaign, and how did they know what messages to deliver?” she said. “Who told them? Who were they coordinating with, and colluding with?” 
 
 She made a joke about Trump’s much-scrutinized relationship with Russia later on during the interview, when the topic of the president’s highly publicized tweet of the non-word “covfefe” came up. She thought it was a “message to the Russians,” she said to laughs. 
 
 She took other hits at Trump, too, calling him a “very impulsive, reactive personality” in response to an audience question and describing his reported plan to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement as “totally incomprehensible” because of the economic opportunity she said it presents. 
 
 Clinton also commented on the state of the Democratic Party, declining to name possible 2020 presidential candidates but calling on people to focus on coming gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, as well as the 2018 midterms. Flipping the House is “certainly realistic” and should be a goal for Democrats, she said, but acknowledged the need to get organized enough to do it. 
 
 When asked directly by Swisher, Clinton said she is not running for office again. But she also said she has no intention of vacating the public stage, as some of her critics, and some Democrats, want her to do. 
 
 “I'm not going anywhere,” Clinton said. “I have a big stake in what happened in this country. I am very unbowed and unbroken about what happened because I don’t want it to happen to anybody else.” 
 
 Clinton spoke at the annual Code Conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes, California. ||||| Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. (Paul J. Richards/AFP; David Goldman/AP) 
 
 Perhaps attempting to escape the afterglow of his strange tweet that included the now famous combination of letters “covfefe,” President Trump revived his old favorite moniker for Clinton on Wednesday: “Crooked Hillary.” 
 
 He was responding to comments made by Clinton earlier in the day at the Recode Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., where she was interviewed on stage by two tech journalists and spoke in detail about the 2016 presidential election. 
 
 “I take responsibility for every decision I made, but that’s not why I lost,” she said. 
 
 Clinton pointed to several factors as the reason she lost, including fake news on Facebook and troubles at the Democratic National Committee. 
 
 At one point saying she suspects Trump’s campaign might have guided Russian government propaganda effects. 
 
 Russians wanted to spread misinformation about her, she said, but “could not have known how best to weaponize that information unless they had been guided. … Guided by Americans and guided by people who had polling and data information.” 
 
 From jokes about the election outcome and the inaugural crowd size to warnings about the Trump administration's growing Russia scandal, Hillary Clinton has turned her ire on President Trump. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) 
 
 When asked who she thought was guiding the Russians, she said, “I’m leaning Trump. I think it’s pretty hard not to.” 
 
 Several hours later, the president took to Twitter. 
 
 “Crooked Hillary Clinton now blames everybody but herself, refuses to say she was a terrible candidate. Hits Facebook & even Dems & DNC,” Trump tweeted at 8:40 p.m. EDT. 
 
 Crooked Hillary Clinton now blames everybody but herself, refuses to say she was a terrible candidate. Hits Facebook & even Dems & DNC. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 1, 2017 
 
 Less than an hour later, Clinton retweeted Trump’s insult, adding a message of her own: “People in covfefe houses shouldn’t throw covfefe.” 
 
 People in covfefe houses shouldn't throw covfefe. https://t.co/M7oK5Z6qwF — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 1, 2017 
 
 In response to Clinton’s humorous “covfefe house” tweet, Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. joined in the social media sparring match by tweeting, “What house is he in again??? That’s what I thought. You’re trying too hard.” 
 
 What house is he in again??? That's what I thought. You're trying too hard. https://t.co/9Yomz1Emb5 — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 1, 2017 
 
 Clinton’s note was a reference to the sentence fragment Trump tweeted at 12:06 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, which simply read, “Despite the constant negative press covfefe.” 
 
 President Trump tweeted a garbled late-night message that baffled everyone on Twitter. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post) 
 
 [Trump targets ‘negative press covfefe’ in garbled midnight tweet that becomes worldwide joke] 
 
 Within four hours, Clinton’s message had been retweeted about 150,000 times and “liked” about 320,000 times. It surpassed Trump’s original “covfefe” tweet, which was retweeted more than 127,000 times and “liked” more than 162,000 times when it was deleted. 
 
 1 of 55 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × See what Hillary Clinton has been doing since the presidential election View Photos The former Democratic candidate and secretary of state has returned to public life after a post-election respite. Caption The former Democratic candidate and secretary of state has returned to public life after a post-election respite. Jan. 28, 2018 Hillary Clinton appears on screen reading an excerpt from the book, “Fire and Fury,” during a skit at the 60th annual Grammy Awards at Madison Square Garden in New York. Matt Sayles/Invision/AP Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
 
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 Even the ‘good hombres’ are not safe: Federal judge blasts Trump’s deportation policies 
 
 USAA dropped ‘Hannity’ amid outcry over conspiracy theory coverage. Now it’s coming back. 
 
 Scott Pelley is out as CBS Evening News anchor; will return to ‘60 Minutes’ full-time ||||| Subscribe to The Global POLITICO on iTunes here. | Subscribe via Stitcher. 
 
 Susan Glasser: HI I’m Susan Glasser, and welcome back to the Global Politico. Our guest this week is John Podesta, literally a man in the middle of it all. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 That’s right, the 2016 campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton. It was his hacked emails that are at the heart of the unfolding FBI investigation that appears to have gotten FBI Director James Comey fired. So we talked Comey, we talked Trump, we talked impeachment and why congressional Republicans are sticking with the president. When we met this weekend at his house in Northwest Washington, he gave me a fascinating firsthand look at what it was like to find out his email had been hacked by the Russians — on the very same day the Access Hollywood tape was released — and he recounted a bit for me what it was like on Election Night, when Donald Trump upset his candidate and Podesta wasn’t quite ready for Hillary Clinton to accept defeat. 
 
 He was sharp tongued and scathing in his view of the White House dysfunction, and talked too about what it was like to be Bill Clinton’s chief of staff when he was impeached — and why he thinks trump is “unfit” for the office today. It was an extensive interview, his most extensive yet on all these subjects, so I thank you for joining us to hear John Podesta on this extraordinary, crazy moment in American politics. 
 
 Glasser: I’m Susan Glasser, and welcome back to The Global POLITICO. We are delighted that our guest for this week is John Podesta, the former campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton, White House chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, and many, many other things besides. John, thank you so much for doing this today. 
 
 John Podesta: Nice to be with you. 
 
 Glasser: You know, I was trying to think how would we even start this conversation, and after the last couple weeks, it’s hard to do anything other than start right at the very beginning here, which is with President Trump and the firing of James Comey, and of course, your own walk-on role in this drama. I think everyone must be curious what you make of the spectacle that is playing out. The hacking of your emails is one of, basically, the foundation stones of this inquiry that has now entangled the president, and his advisers. What do you make of the firing of F.B.I. Director Comey? And where the country should go from here? 
 
 Podesta: Well, we are in uncharted territory, that’s for sure. And back in the—during the campaign, it was—as we tried to point to the Russian interference in the democratic process, people didn’t take it quite as seriously as we had hoped. And we kept making that point and you know, it was covered, but it was covered as a kind of sidebar story. I think that there are two stories here, really. One is the question of whether the Russians are actively trying to interfere in democratic elections, trying to undermine the trans-Atlantic alliance, trying to undermine NATO, trying to undermine the EU. We saw that played out in France with the hack and then the leak of emails in the Macron campaign. I’m no doubt certain we’ll see that in Germany as the German elections roll up. So, the Russian activity in this context is one that I think is quite worrisome, and one that needs a united front, both here at home, and with our allies, particularly in Europe. There’s a separate story going on now, which is both whether the Trump campaign itself during the election colluded with the Russians in terms of the release of the information, and the leaking of the touching and encouraging the Russians to do more, to work with WikiLeaks, etc. That’s one side of this. There’s a different side, which is how the president has been managing the White House, and I think that’s the most serious matter at this stage. It’s only 10 days ago that he fired Jim Comey, but the day before that, we learned from Sally Yates’ testimony that as the acting attorney general, she had briefed the White House that Mike Flynn had been compromised by the Russians, and his interactions with the Russian ambassador, and the Trump White House did nothing, really, for—until the Washington Post reported that conversation more than two weeks later. 
 
 Glasser: And you’ve already said that you think that Reince Priebus and other top aides in the White House are to blame in some ways for the handling of this, and should be fired or should leave. 
 
 Podesta: Well, look, I think the White House counsel, Mr. McGahn, certainly hasn’t covered himself in glory. The problem, I think, in the Trump White House, is that they have no one who really stands up to him when he does—he’s impetuous, he’s impulsive, he fires things off, and, if anything, they enable him rather than trying to contain what are moves that in any other context would seem, you know, absolutely crazy. So, I think there’s probably blame to go around. It obviously starts at the top, but if they’re going to try to right this place and be able to be effective, I think they need a much stronger team who can resist his impulses and tell him that he’s wrong. 
 
 Glasser: There’s so much to unpack, but let’s pursue that a little bit. You were, it bears noting, the chief of staff in the White House the last time a president of the United States was impeached, during Bill Clinton’s tenure. It’s not easy to do what you’re suggesting to Reince Priebus, to say no to a president whose own behavior, in some ways, causes the problem. Did you feel you were able to do that with Bill Clinton? What do you learn from that crisis that might apply to this one? 
 
 Podesta: Look, I think Bill Clinton appointed me because he knew I could say no to him. And I joke around when people ask me the question, how do you speak truth to power? I always say, it’s important to have a spouse that works, so that your children will at least eat when—if you get tossed out the door. But you have to be prepared to do that, and I think that strong leaders actually respect that. I think it’s people and maybe Trump’s an example of this, people whose own egos are fragile, that don’t want to surround themselves with people who are strong and can say no. In Clinton’s case, obviously, he made a mistake, but I think what he wanted, and I think what the White House was built to deliver, was to try to contain that to the investigation that Ken Starr was conducting of the Monica Lewinsky matter. But to have the bulk of the people pay attention to doing the job of the American people. And I think we were pretty successful in doing that, and that’s why the American people stuck with him, even during the impeachment. He had a 67, 68 percent approval rating. In contrast, Trump has a 39 or 40 percent approval rating. 
 
 Glasser: What do you do, though, in a position like this, if the president lies to you directly? I don’t know if that happened with Bill Clinton or not; clearly, he wanted people to believe he had not done something inappropriate with Monica Lewinsky. How do you handle that situation? 
 
 Podesta: Look, I think you—you know, you need to probe that, and I think that you need to be sure that the information that you are providing is contextualized, and you’re not exaggerating the problem. And I think one of the things that we’ve seen in this White House is that they have a sort of complete disregard for the truth. So, they’ll say one thing one day, Trump will tweet something the next day, and they’re onto a different story. I think it’s the responsibility of the White House press secretary or other people in the White House to basically put out straight information, and in order to do that, I think you’ve got to ensure that you’re getting straight information, and they seem to have little regard for that. 
 
 Glasser: Speaking of the sort of shifting explanations that have been offered for the Comey firing now, of course, the events are moving fast, so just last night, there was a new report that came out that suggested that President Trump not only had explicitly linked the firing of Comey to the Russian inquiry, but that he had done so in the meeting itself with the Russians, according to the official notes of the conversation circulating in the White House. So, that’s one stark data point. But the last time I saw you was when this news had just broken, and their very initial inquiry, their very initial statement that day when they fired him was, well, we did it because of the mishandling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, and the last-minute intervention. And as I recall it, we were both at a book party for a book that seemed very appropriately timed about White House chiefs of staff in both parties. And, as I recall it, you along with everybody else, were pretty flabbergasted by this explanation. And clearly Trump misread in some way that he thought you and others would be so disdainful of Comey because of the role his intervention may have played in the election, that you would welcome the firing. What was your reaction? 
 
 Podesta: Well, look, I was a sharp critic of Jim Comey’s. I thought he mishandled, particularly his decision late in the campaign, 11 days before the election, to send a letter to the Hill saying he was going to examine and reopen the email investigation, when he had the tools available to him to quietly look into it, and do what he did nine days later, which is to close it again. And, so I’ve been highly critical of him, and I think that was criticism that was shared on a bipartisan basis. That’s different, though, than taking the action that the president took, which was in the middle of an investigation that he was leading, to go ahead and fire him. I think that was inappropriate and really, I guess, it’s explainable, because he thought, as he said to the Russian foreign minister, that he was getting a lot of pressure from Comey, and he wanted that pressure relieved. And so, he went ahead and fired him. So, you know, it was a remarkable story, this story that just broke, that he’s in chitchatting with the Russian ambassador and Russian foreign minister about his firing of the FBI director because of the conduct that he was undertaking in the Russia investigation. That really is a head-snapper. But I think that—I still think what Jim Comey did last fall was wrong, but he shouldn’t have been fired, given the circumstances that he was leading this investigation. I think now that the deputy attorney general has appointed Bob Mueller, maybe the investigation can move on, and people in the bureau won’t be intimidated by the action that Trump took. 
 
 Glasser: Why did Trump misread the politics of this? It appears that he really did think that Democrats would cheer this. 
 
 Podesta: That seems implausible to me, but you know, I read that, but it seems, you know, just—you know, it’s laughable, really laughable that Donald Trump would fire Jim Comey because of his interference which damaged Hillary Clinton. I mean, it was laughable from the very beginning. So, why he thought that Democratic senators or leaders on the Hill or people in the intelligence committees that are trying as best they can to conduct investigations, would think this was a positive move, is just a complete misreading of reality. I mean, and the fact that his—again, the fact that his senior staff could either identify that, and convince him of that, or he didn’t listen to them, is an indication of a White House that’s really operating with a lot of parts missing, I’d say. 
 
 Glasser: So, you did—first of all, just to be clear on your actual view about this Comey intervention in the election and what happened, Hillary Clinton said recently she believed that that was one of—a significant reason for her defeat in the end. Do you agree with that? Do you think that it did help to swing the election? 
 
 Podesta: Oh, yes. Absolutely. I think that—look, we bear responsibility, and it’s a great burden and I feel it every day. I mean, we lost this election; we won the popular vote by 3 million votes, but we lost the Electoral College and lost the election to Donald Trump. So, we have a burden of his having the keys to the White House, and you know, codes to the nuclear football. But I think this was a significant factor. We felt like we had a lead that we took away from the three debates, in which, you know, I believe that Hillary won all those debates. The race was tight; we weren’t overconfident, but we were—we had a lead, and that lead really substantially narrowed after Comey’s letter, and the last week of coverage, which was all about if nothing else, is this thing going to ever end? Now, you know, he—what he opened, he closed, as I said, just a week later. But he could have done that quietly, and consistently with long-standing precedent, of both Democratic and Republican Justice Departments. 
 
 Glasser: Amazing, we just had Anthony Weiner pleading guilty yesterday, and that this was the underlying thing. When you heard about that, at that time, I mean, did you realize, oh my God, this is going to change the game? Were you— 
 
 Podesta: Look, I think we were trying to deal with it, and cope with a curveball that was thrown at us, and try to keep moving forward, and try to—as best that she could, make the case to the American people. We were feeling like she was out there doing that. We had other people the night before the election, both she and President Clinton were with President Obama and Michelle Obama in Philadelphia. You know, we felt like things—we were—you know, we had kind of weathered this incident, but it wasn’t to be. We lost enough votes in the right places to give him the Electoral College victory. 
 
 Glasser: Well, and of course, that is the response, by angry Democrats as much as by Republicans, to this line of commentary. You know, anytime anybody says, “Well, Comey swung the election,” of course the response is, well, you know, he didn’t stop you from going to Wisconsin; he didn’t stop you from winning Pennsylvania. What do you make of that argument? Hillary Clinton got a lot of pushback when she gave a recent interview where she talked about this. You know— 
 
 Podesta: Look, I think, you know, we could have—we can go at this state by state; I think we threw everything we could at Pennsylvania, and ultimately, came up short. There’s been a lot of analysis about particularly in the exurban, rural areas that white votes—you know, non-college-educated white votes swinging to Trump. You know, I think that we were—you know, we knew what we needed to get done. We tried to do it, and as I said, in those states, we fell short. I mean, I think you can look at each individual state and you know, my own personal view is we probably should have done more in Wisconsin; we didn’t advertise there until the very end. But you know, at the end of the day, we lost Pennsylvania anyway, and we had thrown everything we could at Pennsylvania. So, it is what it is. I think that there was a solid swing to him by that group of voters. I think it was a combination of people feeling like that, you know, it was just OK to blow up the system because the system wasn’t working for them, and they would take a flier on someone they viewed as unfit to be president, you know, when we set out to prove that he was temperamentally unfit, and unqualified to be president. 
 
 We convinced 60 percent of the American public of that. Unfortunately, 20 percent of his voters believed that and still voted for him, and I think that was part of it. I think they just decided, you know, they wanted, you know, radical change to the system, and they were willing to take a flier on the president. I think a lot of those people probably regret that at this point, because the—every day, he proves that he is temperamentally unfit to be president of the United States. 
 
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 Glasser: Every single time you talk, I think there’s about 15 other questions or 15 directions we can take this conversation in. But before we finish with the election itself, I’ve got to ask you about the role that your own emails played in this, first of all. You know, that seems, I think, much less clear cut, from a political standpoint to people, and there’s actually less talk about that, in part, because I think it’s more confusing. A lot of people talk about Comey and his intervention, but now we have the fact that every day for the last five weeks of the campaign, basically in addition to covering whatever we were covering at POLITICO and in other newsrooms, we were faced with a daily dump from your private email account. We read them through; if you asked my news judgment about it, I would say, well, there wasn’t anything that was game-changing in these emails. There wasn’t some new revelation that changed our thinking. For what it’s worth, I thought that your campaign—that you guys seemed to handle your disagreements with each other often in a fairly constructive way. There was obviously some news in there. We covered the news of it. But few people would say they were earth-shattering revelations in and of themselves. Do you think that the release of the emails did play a role in the overall outcome of the election? Or, you know, was it a sort of nothing-burger, as your campaign aides said at the time? That was kind of their argument. 
 
 Podesta: Well, I think two things: One is, for the most part, they weren’t all that newsy. But there was a constant sort of drip, drip, drip effect of keeping emails as an issue in the—on cable, in the news. There was— 
 
 Glasser: Right, so conflating your emails, in effect, with Hillary Clinton’s email server. It just reminded people, oh, there’s a problem with email. Is that— 
 
 Podesta: Right. And I think that that created a, you know, basically a context for then reopening the email investigation by the FBI. And I think that, as I said, this was a massive intervention in our election, and I think if you go back—and I’m trying to be fair-minded about that, but I think if you go back and look at the coverage, it wasn’t handled that way. It was, you know, look what we’ve got, you know. Look what, you know, was released this morning. 
 
 Now, often that was like, you know, fodder for cable more than it was— 
 
 Glasser: Right, it wasn’t treated with the same equivalence. 
 
 Podesta: But also, the fact that the Russians did this, and then tried to upset the election, in contrast I think, because of what happened in the U.S., I think the French media handled this quite differently, in the French presidential election. 
 
 Glasser: Do you think the Obama White House could have or should have done more? And again, I recognize hindsight is 20/20 here, but it seems that there was actually a bigger debate than we understood at the time going on inside the White House with your former colleagues and in the U.S. government, about the response. And it does seem, knowing what we know now, that they potentially could have changed how they handled it. 
 
 Podesta: Well, look, I think, you know, woulda coulda shoulda. I think that they were faced with trying to make judgments in a context where their active engagement could have been seen as interference as well. I think that weighed in their minds toward a more measured response, the response that we got on October 8th, when the director of national intelligence and secretary of Homeland Security released the letter, saying that— 
 
 Glasser: October 7th, it was the same day as the "Access Hollywood" tape. And, of course— 
 
 Podesta: October 7th, I have to apologize. 
 
 Glasser: That day, it was hard to know what story was the bigger story. 
 
 Podesta: Yes, so, by the way, my emails begin leaking from WikiLeaks about 20 minutes after the "Access Hollywood" tape was released. 
 
 Glasser: Did you have any indication that was going to happen, by the way? 
 
 Podesta: So, I think that was— 
 
 Glasser: I didn’t realize it was—or I forgot that it was so close in time. 
 
 Podesta: No, I mean, the indication that we—that they may have been planning something goes back to August when Roger Stone— 
 
 Glasser: Right, Roger Stone. 
 
 Podesta: Had sort of pointed to that. 
 
 Glasser: But you didn’t know it was your email? When did you find out they had your email? 
 
 Podesta: I think that I wasn’t fully aware of it until Assange on WikiLeaks started sort of dropping it, which was half an hour after the "Access Hollywood" tape job. So, I wanted to just say one more thing, though, Susan, about what the effect of this was. 
 
 Glasser: Yes. 
 
 Podesta: In the end of the day, one of the things that happened, which is a little bit of a different tangent on this, and how the mainstream media covered it, and the Russians, etc., was it was fodder for fake news. And I think the Russians were also active there. It wasn’t just the hacking and the release of the information. It was the production and distribution, the trolling, the bots, the churn of fake news that was ostensibly coming out of the emails. 
 
 You know, the most famous example of that has been fully and completely debunked is Pizzagate, but I think that it is—that, I think, was happening at a subterranean level that we probably didn’t fully realize the corrosive effect that that was having on public attitudes. The mainstream press was knocking most of that down, but it was still being circulated through alt-right sources through bombarding Facebook, and lifting up of fake news. I think that was a very significant factor in how people shaped their opinions in those last few weeks, and again, that is—I think you have to understand that there was a very active Russian program in addition to what the alt-right sources were doing with the Trump campaign. 
 
 Glasser: Right, but we weren’t told that by the government when they did finally talk about the hacking. I don’t know if they made you or the campaign aware of it, but certainly it wasn’t widely reported at the time, this fake news element of it. 
 
 Podesta: Right, I think how much the government really even understands it is unclear. I think that most of what we know has come from independent sources like Clint Watts, who was a former FBI informer, Army officer who taught at West Point, who actually was tracking ISIS communications, and the communications going out of Syria, and sort of stumbled into the Russian fake news story, and he’s testified on Capitol Hill. I’ve learned more from him than I have from the government. 
 
 Glasser: So, just to go back quickly, did you urge the Obama White House to speak before October 7, or act more forcefully in advance? Did you try to get them to? I know members of Congress did. 
 
 Podesta: Well, members of Congress were being briefed, remember that. So, first Harry Reid, and then the Gang of Eight were being briefed, at least they had eyes on what the—what was being—what was coming into the government from both, I think less from the FBI investigation, more from what friendly intelligence services in Europe were feeding back into the U.S. intelligence community. And, I know they were—there was the briefing in early September—nothing public came of that. I think that Senator Reid at the time was sort of pointing a finger in that direction, but there was nothing official from the government. And finally, in early October, they released that statement that I mentioned. We, of course, didn’t have eyes on that, and I don’t think it would have been appropriate for them to be briefing us on it. And we weren’t pressuring them, because I think, again, they would have not believed it was appropriate for us to be in— 
 
 Glasser: What—it would have seemed political. 
 
 Podesta: Well, it would have been political. 
 
 Glasser: Yes. 
 
 Podesta: So, I think what we were trying to do was to make our case in public, not in private to the government, that what was going on was unprecedented, and you know, again, the break-in of the DNC computers, when you think about the way the media handled a bunch of bungling burglars going into the DNC in 1972, the fact that the Russians did it electronically, you know, using cyberweapons was just—there wasn’t in, you know, in my mind, a balance. I think, to be fair, to the media now, I think they learned something from that, and they’re aggressively, you know, trying to approach what happened, and what’s going on in these investigations with great vigor. 
 
 Glasser: OK, so you’ve brought up the spectacle of Watergate, which takes us back to, in a weird way, the present day, and the question of what to make of all this. But just quickly, to finish up on your own email, knowing what you know now, would you have done something different? I mean, you clicked on this link; did you have any idea? Have you ever had any exposure to cyberhacking like this before? 
 
 Podesta: You know, look, there’s a long, complicated story about that. I had assistants that had access to the link. One of them checked what—one of them saw this question, changed the password, asked our cybersecurity expert. He inadvertently told her to click on it, and she did. So, I don’t blame them. I mean, it was, you know, a fast-moving campaign. It’s easy to say, oh, if you’ve already done this and that and the other thing—I think we’re—I’m, you know, I’ve been around for a while. I’m fairly careful. I don’t just go click on random links, and—but, you know, if—I’m sure that if I had gotten the advice to go ahead and click on it, I probably would have done it, too, so you know, it is what it is. And people make mistakes. And if you look—if you think about it, the Bundestag has been hacked, you know, the Norwegian defense department has been hacked, the White House was hacked by the Russians, and the State Department’s been hacked. It’s like, I think you can’t come back and blame the victim for this. This was a crime; it was painful. You know, I thought I was, you know, had a relatively secure profile. It turned out I didn’t, but a lot of other people have fallen prey to fairly sophisticated hackers that are operating under Russian intelligence. In this case, most likely, from the GRU, but it’s Russian military intelligence. It’s pretty sophisticated, so they did this. So, it is what it is. I can’t really beat myself up or beat my team up over that. I just have to move on, and you know, they committed a crime. I was a victim of the crime. 
 
 Glasser: Well, you know, and we still don’t know a lot about it, obviously, either, including how it came to be from that hacking to be public exactly. 
 
 Podesta: We have a pretty good suspicion. 
 
 Glasser: Yes. So, the last guest on this program was Condoleezza Rice, and she was advancing her own theory of this, which was interesting, which was this sort of Vladimir Putin revenge theory, and she really believes that this was a directly personal attack by Putin on Hillary Clinton, in effect. Do you agree with that? What does Secretary Clinton think of all of this? 
 
 Podesta: Look, I think there’s some indications of that in our intelligence. I think what began as, I think, an effort probably to just sow dissension, so that people didn’t trust democratic processes, they didn’t trust the outcomes of elections, it kind of morphed into hitting her personally. I think there is—you know, he has a grudge because I think she stood up when—in—during his last election, when people went into the streets and said the election had been unfair and rigged. You know, he still holds a grudge about that, I think. But I think it wasn’t until they found someone who was so willing to take almost lock, stock and barrel, the Russian perspective on foreign policy, which was antithetical to U.S. opinion, that they realized well, you know, let’s go for it. You know, the worst is we’ll hurt her if she’s elected, as I suspect they thought she would be. She’ll go in weakened, and the democratic process will go in weakened. At best, we’ll have someone who has questioned the bipartisan premise of U.S. foreign policy for decades, and put in someone who’s kind of willing to do what we’ve been arguing is in our best interest in Ukraine, in Syria, weakening NATO, weakening the EU. So, I think they got a high return on their investment, let’s put it that way. 
 
 Glasser: Did Secretary Clinton buy that idea that it was Putin personally who ordered this? 
 
 Podesta: Well, I think she buys it because that’s what the U.S. intelligence community has concluded. You know, I think there’s—it’s not fantasy. It’s what the collective judgment of the U.S. intelligence community finally concluded, when they reported to the president in January. 
 
 Glasser: So, would she have fired James Comey, do you think? 
 
 Podesta: You know, we never discussed that. You have to kind of render your best judgment about what’s in the interest of the United States. And I think had she been elected, and gotten into office, I think, you know, obviously, there was—there probably would have been tension in the relationship, but I think you have to do what you think is best. You know, there was probably no love lost between Director Freeh and President Clinton, yet I think, you know, his judgment was that it would have been a colossal mistake to go—to have fired him, given the fact that, again, there was an active investigation going on by Ken Starr. So, you know, we live with someone who expressed hostility toward the president, but he—the FBI director following J. Edgar Hoover, and then following Watergate was set up to have a 10-year term, a certain level of independence—and so, I think that would have been a judgment that she would have had to render, and my guess is that stability is—was—you know, might have won out. But again, I think that probably would have been a tense relationship, if he had stayed. 
 
 Glasser: Well, that’s probably understated. I was struck by the fact that, of course, now the special counsel investigating the Trump team is none other than the former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who also had a fairly tense relationship with President Bush. I was just reading the account of the dramatic hospital-room confrontation with James Comey, and Mueller plays actually a very significant role. He, in effect, threatens to quit if Bush doesn’t do what he wants, and Bush bows down rather than—or backs down, I should say—rather than trigger an open confrontation with Director Mueller. 
 
 Podesta: Right. 
 
 Glasser: And that wasn’t really understood at the time; that only became known later. But clearly, many presidents have fantasized about firing the FBI director, but few have done what Trump did. 
 
 Podesta: Yes, the whole top tier of the [Bush] Justice Department at that point pushed back on the president and his White House counsel, including Larry Thompson, the deputy attorney general, and Ashcroft, who was sick and in the hospital when they tried to essentially roll him. And so, that’s what I mean by—you know, sometimes, you’ve got to stand up when people are doing things that you think are wrong, and be prepared to walk on it. And there seems to be little of that available to the people in the White House these days. 
 
 Glasser: So, that’s the striking thing about Trump, right, is what we all perceive to be norm-shattering, and perhaps beyond that, but we don’t know the answer to that question yet, of whether it’s more than just shattering political norms, by doing things like firing the FBI director, talking about it in the terms in which he apparently did with the Russian visitors to the White House. So, do you believe there is already evidence, from what we’ve learned in the last two weeks, that would constitute an impeachable offense, that does anything more than violate our sense of norms? 
 
 Podesta: Well, look, I think in the first instance, that’s what Bob Mueller needs to take a look at. I think you can make an argument that firing of the FBI director in that context clearly based on his own comments to the Russians, if nobody else, indicated that he was doing that because Comey was putting pressure on him. I think that is close to an obstruction case, either in the political context of impeachment, or in the context of a criminal grand jury investigation to indict somebody for obstruction. I think it’s a little too early to say. You know, my problem with President Trump is that he’s—you know, he seems incapable of doing the job. I mean, every day is another, you know, dive into kind of craziness, when he gets up and opens his phone. So, you know, it is also clear to me that Republicans on Capitol Hill are not going to begin to turn on him at this point. So, I think more needs to happen. We’ll learn more. I do think that one of their great vulnerabilities going forward is less about what they did last fall, and how much they colluded with the Russians, and more about their inability to ever tell the truth. And you know, you can lie to the American people, and sometimes you get rewarded for that. And I think if you look at the way—what Trump said he was going to do and what he’s done, his emphasis on just taking care of the wealthy and powerful in office—that seems to me a fundamental lie that he made to the American voters. But you can lie to the American people. Sometimes you’re rewarded for that. If you lie to the FBI, if you lie to congressional investigators, that’s a crime. And they seem incapable of telling the truth. So, I think their vulnerability is what they did over the last few months. And what they’re going to say right now, about what really happened, and both in the conduct of the way the White House has managed intelligence information, as well as what they did in the campaign. And I think they’ll be very vulnerable because they seem like, as I say, that if they think for a short-term gain they can get away with a lie, they do it. And the Comey firing is an excellent example of that. 
 
 Glasser: Well, there have been a lot of different explanations in a very short amount of time for what that is. 
 
 Podesta: Yes, imagine putting your vice president out to say one thing, and then the next day, you know, he does the interview with Lester Holt, and he just throws him right under the bus. I mean, it’s really astonishing. 
 
 Glasser: You think that Al Gore and Bill Clinton were on bad terms, I can only imagine. But as a matter of politics, I find it interesting that you say that you think the Republicans are not going to turn on him right now. 
 
 Podesta: Well, there’s no sign of it. 
 
 
 
 Glasser: Do you think— 
 
 
 
 Podesta: I mean, there’s no sign of the leadership— 
 
 
 
 Glasser: Well, also potentially having Mueller appointed means that more time goes back on the clock, right, because you know, he’s not going to come to some rapid conclusion in the next few months. So, we could be looking at all the way past the midterm elections, do you think? 
 
 Podesta: Well, look. I think that I was making an observation, not what I think they should do, but— 
 
 Glasser: Right, no, I understand. 
 
 Podesta: I think if you look at, you know, first of all, Devin Nunes, and the intelligence committee investigation, and his being completely compromised by the White House; if you look at [House Speaker Paul] Ryan sticking, you know, not being prepared to criticize Trump; if you look at [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell, kind of hanging in there and sticking with him, I think they have concluded that their only chance of getting, you know, tax reform or repealing Obamacare, is to stick with Trump. And they’ll take the consequences. But I think they’re empowering him in their decision to kind of Velcro their own political fate to his, and it could mean that in the midterm elections, they pay a healthy price for that. His job, you know, job approval bounces around. It looks like it’s around 40 percent right now. They go into those elections with the president’s job approval at that point or any lower, and they could, you know, have fairly substantial losses. If the Democrats were to be so successful as to take back control of the House, then I think, you know, all bets are off. I think you’d see a much more serious congressional investigation going on. 
 
 Glasser: As a matter of politics, would you advise Democrats to be talking about Trump and the potential for impeachment and Russia, or is it better to talk about the things you just mentioned—health care and the—like, some people have said that that was one of Hillary Clinton’s mistakes, was running against Trump on making the case that he was unfit for office, as opposed to having a more robust, compelling vision for what people could buy into? 
 
 Podesta: You know, I think, again, as I look back on it, he does create a vortex and a kind of trap for his opponents, which is he says, you know, something outrageous, and if it’s not outrageous enough to dominate the news, he just amps it up. And it’s easy to fall into the trap of always being kind of in his story. And I think Democrats would be well taken essentially to do, in essence, a distribution of the tasks. Let the people like Adam Schiff, like Mark Warner, the people who are actively investigating him, take the lead on ensuring that whatever they can do to get the facts to come out, is—are being done. But in their own interactions with their constituents in town halls, etc., to be raising the stakes about what it will mean to throw 24 million people off of health care, what a tax bill that costs $7 trillion and where the benefits are all flowing to the wealthiest Americans and corporations. The rank-and-file Democrats, I think, need to run on the issues that are really salient and essential to the American people. How are we going to move forward so that we, rather than exacerbating the great inequality that we’ve seen, rather than ignoring the fact that wages haven’t risen, come forward with policies? I was at the CAP Ideas Festival this week, where, again, speaker after speaker criticized Trump, but they also put out a positive vision on criminal justice reform, on tax policy, on getting wages growing again, on building infrastructure and making sure that people, you know, particularly without a college education, had access to good jobs, well-paying jobs, and jobs that supported a decent life. So, I think you can’t complete ignore it, because I think it is the news of the day, but I think you can let some of the leadership emerge from the people whose job it is to be investigating him, and let the other members really get back to first—you know, first things first. 
 
 Glasser: A lot of people are wondering after Obama, after the Clintons, if there is that bench of next generation leaders and vision for the Democrats, looking ahead to 2020. Is there anyone in particular you have your eye on? And what are we supposed to make of Hillary Clinton getting back into politics this week with her PAC? What is that for? 
 
 Podesta: Well, I think, look, I think what she’s done, and I think what is clear from what she said in her email, and what she’s been saying to people, is that what she wants to support are people who want to get engaged in politics. So, there are some new groups, there are people who’ve been doing this for a long time, like Emily’s List. But I think what she wants to do is support that generation of people who want to run for something, who want to get engaged, who want to move beyond just coming out to protest and turn that into positive action. And so, what she’s done and she’s working with Howard Dean and some others to try to figure out, is how she lends her voice to their activities. I don’t think it’s a prequel to her actively becoming a candidate again. I think, quite frankly, she’s done with that, but I think she does admire people who want to resist what the direction that Trump is taking the country, want to be engaged in politics, want to make that important to people across the board, but particularly young people. So, I think if you saw the people that she’s said that she would like to try to help raise funds for and support, it’s, you know, it’s the people who are out there making change happen. I think we’ll see, notwithstanding her inability to crack that last glass ceiling, I think she’s quite encouraged by the number of women coming into politics, and deciding that they, you know, they want to take the baton and run for public office. And she’ll support them. In the long run, I think she’ll do what’s she’s always done, which is to try to make positive change. You know, again, particularly for women and girls in this country. 
 
 Glasser: So, Watergate is really when Hillary Clinton and you also came of age politically. So 
 
 many people are making these comparisons. You know, being a Watergate pundit is a fast way to get back on TV these days. My friend Jack Farrell’s book—very good book on Nixon is a bestseller as a result of this, though he was working on it long before Donald Trump was a prospect. 
 
 Podesta: I’ve seen a lot more John Dean on TV these days. 
 
 Glasser: It’s incredible, right? Although it’s so interesting to go back and read, as I have been doing, you know, what role John Dean played inside the White House before he turned on Nixon. He was really instrumental in many of these things. 
 
 Podesta: Yes. 
 
 Glasser: What do you make of these comparisons? How should we think about what is happening with the White House right now? Is it comparable? Is this history rhyming in some way? 
 
 Podesta: I’m hard-pressed to say that because I think in the end of the day, Nixon, for all his flaws, and I think, you know, he deserved his fate, if you will, as a result of the cover-up of Watergate, was a serious person. And I think that’s a big distinction between our current president and that president. Nixon faced a Democratic Congress; Trump is enabled by a Republican Congress that spends most of their time trying to do anything but, you know, react to what Trump is doing. You know, as I say, they look at their shoes most of the time. But they enable him in not reacting and rejecting his worst excesses. So, you know, it is what it is. History will play out. It is, you know, a little—just a little more than a hundred days into this. It’s hard to imagine how this keeps going for an entire presidential term. But right now, there’s nothing that compels him to leave. So, we’ll just, you know, it’ll unfold as it unfolds. But every day, there’s kind of new fodder for thinking that he can’t do this job. 
 
 Glasser: Do you think an Article 25 removal scenario, which some people have talked about, is even something worth talking about ever? You know, it’s never been used before, whereas impeachment, while rare, has been used. 
 
 Podesta: You know, one of the things that happened after Iran-Contra was when Howard Baker came in, and Don Regan was out of the White House. I think there was some question about whether President Reagan was really beginning to lose the ability to function. I think Baker actually had his—one of his staff people sort of try to think about whether— 
 
 Glasser: Yes, I just reread the account of that. It’s very interesting. And then they had a lunch with Reagan, and he was super with it, and they decided, nope, OK, we’re not going to look at that. 
 
 Podesta: Yes, they pushed it aside. So, it’s not like it’s never been imagined, I guess. But I think that if you look at—you know, that has to be triggered, in essence, by the vice president and his Cabinet, and could we really imagine that happening today? I mean, I think it would have to get—the Twitter ranting and raving would have to get much worse, even than it is, even as shocking as it is today, it would have to get much worse before I think you could imagine a scenario. You know, Betsy DeVos signing her name to throw Donald Trump out of office is kind of hard for me to imagine right now. 
 
 Glasser: Yes, retirement—I’m sorry, resignation might be a more realistic scenario even— 
 
 Podesta: Yes, I know—you know, Tony Schwartz, who wrote The Art of the Deal, I guess with Trump, has suggested that at some point, he’ll just walk. You know, sort of claim victory and walk away from it, so. 
 
 Glasser: But there’s an element of wishful thinking to all of this on the part of Democrats and commentators. You know, even the Russia story in some ways has always struck me as if people are waiting for some deus ex machina to come and sort of close down the show. You know, that most likely, right, we have 1,300 more days of this term. 
 
 Podesta: Yes, I think that’s the sad truth, and we’ll just have to—I think the public will—and the public reaction, the pushback on health care, etc., is, at the end of the day, the only clear antidote to—for him to do, you know, terrible things domestically, I think you—it looked as though, in the international sphere, that his—this, you know, his, you know, kind of impulse-driven foreign policy—what had been by Flynn leaving, McMaster coming in, Jim Mattis, and even Rex Tillerson at the State Department were more realists. I think McMaster got hurt a little bit by going out and trying—and them using him to defend—that was before, of course, we knew what he had really said to the Russians, but he— 
 
 Glasser: And McMaster was in the room for that, too. 
 
 Podesta: McMaster was in the room for the Russians; they used him, they used up some of his credibility, but I think the—while he’s been damaged, I think the foreign policy side, we’re really relying less on public opposition, and we’re relying on the combined experience of some individuals to keep him from doing something, you know, really wacky, I think, over there. 
 
 Glasser: Amazing how much we’re doing both Kremlinology, and Trumpology these days, when we talk about Washington. You’ve had a long and very distinguished career here in Washington; what is next for you? If Hillary Clinton is not running again, is John Podesta running again in some way? 
 
 Podesta: Running to the West Coast to live with more like-minded people. You know, I’ve had a good run in politics. I think that I’m obviously heartbroken that she’s not president of the United States, but you know, I’m thankful for the fact that I had the chance to render public service to two great presidents, and I’m—when I went back to work for President Obama, as you know, Susan, I was trying to ensure that he was successful on the—particularly with respect to climate and energy transformation toward a cleaner energy system. So, I’m spending some time just in my capacity as a private citizen, trying to push back on the excesses that this administration has shown toward ignoring climate change, appointing a climate denier to head the EPA, the wrecking ball that they’ve taken to the environment. So, I’m, again, I’m a kind of citizen activist, and I’m trying to deal from that perspective. 
 
 Glasser: And do you talk much with Mrs. Clinton or President Clinton these days? What would you say their mood is? 
 
 Podesta: You know, I talk to both of them. They’re in New York; I’m here, so I see them less frequently, obviously. Talk to them on the phone. I had dinner with him recently. Look, I think they’re both—they’ve devoted their entire lives, as I said, to try to improve the conditions for people here, and around the world, and I think they’re trying to figure out what their contribution is going to be going forward. The president, I think, is re-engaged with the foundation and trying to find ways in which he can use his voice and his presence to, you know, tackle issues around global poverty, around health care, around the world, as he’s done, and here at home, to try to be a positive voice for change. He’s been very engaged in the fight against childhood obesity, and I’m sure he’s going to find important ways for him to remain active and present. I think the same thing is true of Hillary. I think as she now is back out and talking to people, I think people are encouraging her to do what she’s always done, which is to make a positive difference for people. If I had to speculate—this is based more on what—because I know her more— 
 
 Glasser: I would say, it would be informed speculation. 
 
 Podesta: Than what she said. I think she’s working on a book. She’s trying to figure out what platform that she will use to make change happen, but I am quite confident, as she’s done all her life, to—that the fight for a more peaceful world, more equality, for—to lift up women and girls around the world will be her mission, and you know, we need her out there, because she does good things when she’s engaged. 
 
 Glasser: You’ve been in a lot of campaigns in your life. If this was your last campaign, there’s been an account that’s come out that said this was, you know, a very dysfunctional campaign, lots of infighting between you and the campaign manager, Robby Mook. Was it really more dysfunctional than other campaigns you’ve been in? 
 
 Podesta: No, I think, you know, if those 70,000 votes had gone differently in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, that we would have all been geniuses, and they would have written a very different book. I think it was a—you know, it was a moment that they captured. I actually think we got along pretty well, and I think if you—and as the book was—as other reporters talked to people inside the campaign, you know, it’s not like there’s not—there’s always sort of like little grains of truth in this, and sometimes, Robby and I disagreed about strategy or— 
 
 Glasser: Well, you just pointed out, you wanted to be more in Wisconsin, for example. 
 
 Podesta: But, you know, I think he’s an extraordinarily talented person who did what I think was a heroic task of putting together a massive campaign across the country. And our fights were always contained inside the building, and we usually worked them out, and he and I remain friends, and I think that I didn’t really—I have to say, first of all, I didn’t read the book, but as I read accounts of the book, I don’t recognize the campaign that they described. Was there arm-wrestling? There is in every campaign, but I think this was one where, you know, people tried to stay in harness, and I think they believed in the cause, and were proud of what we were able to do. So, I’ll let others be the judge of whether that bears any resemblance to internal reality. 
 
 Glasser: Well, you’ve been extremely generous with your time today. I’ve got to ask you one last question, because I’ve just been wondering this for the last six months or however long it’s been. Election night obviously was an extraordinary night that most people are going to remember for a long, long time. Can you just leave with a little bit of the scene, as you experienced that? 
 
 Podesta: Oh, look, it’s like that’s too crushing to relive right now. You know, we thought we were going to—like I said, I don’t think we were overconfident, but we thought we had weathered that last week, and we thought we were going to be victorious, and we were excited to see someone we believed in so much get elected president of the United States. Obviously, it would have been history-making to elect the first woman president of the United States. But as the returns rolled in, the, you know, we got gloomier, and the weight of it all—you know, we kept looking for, you know, maybe there are pockets of votes here or there that will turn things around. It was so close in those states that, you know, we held onto hope until the late hours, but at some point— 
 
 Glasser: So, you did hold onto hope, and then President Obama called you at some point, and he said— 
 
 Podesta: Well, I went over to the Javits Center, and asked people to hang in, have faith, and to wait a little bit longer until we got all the votes counted. And he called Hillary and said, you know, what his people were seeing, what he was—saying, you know, he thought it was over, and that she should concede. And in the interim, I was coming back to The Peninsula, where she was staying, and he called me, and told me what he had told her. But by the time I got back to—she had already called Trump. So, it was a sad and, you know, at some level, you’re—in grief, you also find love. So, it was a scene in which a bunch of tears were shed, and a bunch of hugs were had. It was tough. 
 
 Glasser: Well, that’s a powerful story, and quite a note to end it on. You know, as we contemplate sort of the alternate-reality version of history that we’re living in today. The president of the United States is making his very first trip overseas to Saudi Arabia, which, with no inside information whatsoever, I can confidently say would not be the first place that President Hillary Clinton would have gone. 
 
 Podesta: Yes, I think that’s a fair point. 
 
 Glasser: All right, well, John Podesta, thank you so much for joining us on The Global POLITICO this week, and thank you, of course, to all of you who’ve been listening. We’re delighted that we’ve had, I think, way more than a million listeners in the few months since we’ve started this project, so thank you to all of you. You can subscribe to The Global POLITICO on iTunes, you can listen to it on whatever your favorite podcast platform is, and of course, you can email me any time at sglasser@politico.com, with your ideas, thoughts, feedback, whatever. Thank you very much and thank you to John Podesta. 
 
 Podesta: Thanks, Susan. 
 
 Susan B. Glasser is POLITICO’s chief international affairs columnist. Her new podcast, The Global Politico, comes out Mondays. Subscribe here. Follow her on Twitter @sbg1. ||||| So Michael Flynn, who was Donald Trump's national security adviser before he got busted talking out of school to Russia's ambassador, has reportedly offered to testify in exchange for immunity. 
 
 Related Taibbi on Trump the Destroyer Trump has stuffed his Cabinet with tyrants, zealots and imbeciles – all bent on demolishing our government from within 
 
 For seemingly the 100th time, social media is exploding. This is it! The big reveal! 
 
 Perhaps it will come off just the way people are expecting. Perhaps Flynn will get a deal, walk into the House or the Senate surrounded by a phalanx of lawyers, and unspool the whole sordid conspiracy. 
 
 He will explain that Donald Trump, compromised by ancient deals with Russian mobsters, and perhaps even blackmailed by an unspeakable KGB sex tape, made a secret deal. He'll say Trump agreed to downplay the obvious benefits of an armed proxy war in Ukraine with nuclear-armed Russia in exchange for Vladimir Putin's help in stealing the emails of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and John Podesta. 
 
 I personally would be surprised if this turned out to be the narrative, mainly because we haven't seen any real evidence of it. But episodes like the Flynn story have even the most careful reporters paralyzed. What if, tomorrow, it all turns out to be true? 
 
 What if reality does turn out to be a massive connect-the-dots image of St. Basil's Cathedral sitting atop the White House? (This was suddenly legitimate British conspiracist Louise Mensch's construction in The New York Times last week.) What if all the Glenn Beck-style far-out charts with the circles and arrows somehow all make sense? 
 
 This is one of the tricks that keeps every good conspiracy theory going. Nobody wants to be the one claiming the emperor has no clothes the day His Highness walks out naked. And this Russia thing has spun out of control into just such an exercise of conspiratorial mass hysteria. 
 
 Even I think there should be a legitimate independent investigation – one that, given Trump's history, might uncover all sorts of things. But almost irrespective of what ends up being uncovered on the Trump side, the public prosecution of this affair has taken on a malevolent life of its own. 
 
 One way we recognize a mass hysteria movement is that everyone who doesn't believe is accused of being in on the plot. This has been going on virtually unrestrained in both political and media circles in recent weeks. 
 
 The aforementioned Mensch, a noted loon who thinks Putin murdered Andrew Breitbart but has somehow been put front and center by The Times and HBO's Real Time, has denounced an extraordinary list of Kremlin plants. 
 
 She's tabbed everyone from Jeff Sessions ("a Russian partisan") to Rudy Giuliani and former Assistant FBI Director James Kallstrom ("agents of influence") to Glenn Greenwald ("Russian shill") to ProPublica and Democracy Now! (also "Russian shills"), to the 15-year-old girl with whom Anthony Weiner sexted (really, she says, a Russian hacker group called "Crackas With Attitudes") to an unnamed number of FBI agents in the New York field office ("moles"). And that's just for starters. 
 
 
 
 Nicholas Kamm/Getty 
 
 Others are doing the same. Eric Boehlert of Media Matters, upon seeing the strange behavior of Republican Intel Committee chair Devin Nunes, asked "what kind of dossier" the Kremlin has on Nunes. 
 
 Dem-friendly pollster Matt McDermott wondered why reporters Michael Tracey and Zaid Jilani aren't on board with the conspiracy stories (they might be "unwitting" agents!) and noted, without irony, that Russian bots mysteriously appear every time he tweets negatively about them. 
 
 Think about that last one. Does McDermott think Tracey and Jilani call their handlers at the sight of a scary Matt McDermott tweet and have the FSB send waves of Russian bots at him on command? Or does he think it's an automated process? What goes through the heads of such people? 
 
 I've written a few articles on the Russia subject that have been very tame, basically arguing that it might be a good idea to wait for evidence of collusion before those of us in the media jump in the story with both feet. But even I've gotten the treatment. 
 
 I've been "outed" as a possible paid Putin plant by the infamous "PropOrNot" group, which is supposedly dedicated to rooting out Russian "agents of influence." You might remember PropOrNot as the illustrious research team the Washington Post once relied on for a report that accused 200 alternative websites of being "routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season." 
 
 Politicians are getting into the act, too. It was one thing when Rand Paul balked at OKing the expansion of NATO to Montenegro, and John McCain didn't hesitate to say that "the senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin." 
 
 Even Bernie Sanders has himself been accused of being a Putin plant by Mensch. But even he's gotten on board of late, asking, "What do the Russians have on Mr. Trump?" 
 
 So even people who themselves have been accused of being Russian plants are now accusing people of being Russian plants. As the Russians would say, it's enough to make your bashka hurt. 
 
 Sanders should know better. Last week, during hearings in the Senate, multiple witnesses essentially pegged his electoral following as unwitting fellow travelers for Putin. 
 
 Former NSA chief Keith Alexander spoke openly of how Russia used the Sanders campaign to "drive a wedge within the Democratic Party," while Dr. Thomas Rid of Kings College in London spoke of Russia's use of "unwitting agents" and "overeager journalists" to drive narratives that destabilized American politics. 
 
 This testimony was brought out by Virginia Democrat Mark Warner. Warner has been in full-blown "precious bodily fluids" mode throughout this scandal. During an interview with The Times on the Russia subject a month back, there was a thud outside the window. "That may just be the FSB," he said. The paper was unsure if he was kidding. 
 
 Warner furthermore told The Times that in order to get prepared for his role as an exposer of 21st-century Russian perfidy, he was "losing himself in a book about the Romanovs," and had been quizzing staffers about "Tolstoy and Nabokov." 
 
 This is how nuts things are now: a senator brushes up on Nabokov and Tolstoy (Tolstoy!) to get pumped to expose Vladimir Putin. 
 
 Even the bizarre admission by FBI director (and sudden darling of the same Democrats who hated him months ago) James Comey that he didn't know anything about Russia's biggest company didn't seem to trouble Americans very much. Here's the key exchange, from a House hearing in which Jackie Speier quizzed Comey: 
 
 SPEIER: Now, do we know who Gazprom-Media is? Do you know anything about Gazprom, director? 
 
 COMEY: I don't. 
 
 SPEIER: Well, it's a – it's an oil company. 
 
 (Incidentally, Gazprom – primarily a natural-gas giant – is not really an oil company. So both Comey and Speier got it wrong.) 
 
 As Leonid Bershidsky of Bloomberg noted, this exchange was terrifying to Russians. The leader of an investigation into Russian espionage not knowing what Gazprom is would be like an FSB chief not having heard of Exxon-Mobil. It's bizarre, to say the least. 
 
 Matt McClain/The Washington Post/Getty 
 
 Testimony of the sort that came from Warner's committee last week is being buttressed by news stories in liberal outlets like Salon insisting that "Bernie Bros" were influenced by those same ubiquitous McDermott-chasing Russian "bots." 
 
 These stories insist that, among other things, these evil bots pushed on the unwitting "bros" juicy "fake news" stories about Hillary being "involved with various murders and money laundering schemes." 
 
 Some 13.2 million people voted for Sanders during the primary season last year. What percentage does any rational person really believe voted that way because of "fake news"? 
 
 I would guess the number is infinitesimal at best. The Sanders campaign was driven by a lot of factors, but mainly by long-developing discontent within the Democratic Party and enthusiasm for Sanders himself. 
 
 To describe Sanders followers as unwitting dupes who departed the true DNC faith because of evil Russian propaganda is both insulting and ridiculous. It's also a testimony to the remarkable capacity for self-deception within the leadership of the Democratic Party. 
 
 If the party's leaders really believe that Russian intervention is anywhere in the top 100 list of reasons why some 155 million eligible voters (out of 231 million) chose not to pull a lever for Hillary Clinton last year, they're farther along down the Purity of Essence nut-hole than Mark Warner. 
 
 Moreover, even those who detest Trump with every fiber of their being must see the dangerous endgame implicit in this entire line of thinking. If the Democrats succeed in spreading the idea that straying from the DNC-approved candidate – in either the past or the future – is/was an act of "unwitting" cooperation with the evil Putin regime, then the entire idea of legitimate dissent is going to be in trouble. 
 
 Imagine it's four years from now (if indeed that's when we have our next election). A Democratic candidate stands before the stump, and announces that a consortium of intelligence experts has concluded that Putin is backing the hippie/anti-war/anti-corporate opposition candidate. 
 
 Or, even better: that same candidate reminds us "what happened last time" when people decided to vote their consciences during primary season. It will be argued, in seriousness, that true Americans will owe their votes to the non-Putin candidate. It would be a shock if some version of this didn't become an effective political trope going forward. 
 
 But if you're not worried about accusing non-believers of being spies, or pegging legitimate dissent as treason, there's a third problem that should scare everyone. 
 
 Last week saw Donna Brazile and Dick Cheney both declare Russia's apparent hack of DNC emails an "act of war." This coupling seemed at first like political end times: as Bill Murray would say, "dogs and cats, living together." 
 
 But there's been remarkable unanimity among would-be enemies in the Republican and Democrat camps on this question. Suddenly everyone from Speier to McCain to Kamala Harris to Ben Cardin have decried Russia's alleged behavior during the election as real or metaphorical acts of war: a "political Pearl Harbor," as Cardin put it. 
 
 That no one seems to be concerned about igniting a hot war with nuclear-powered Russia at a time when both countries have troops within "hand-grenade range" of each in Syria other is bizarre, to say the least. People are in such a fever to drag Trump to impeachment that these other considerations seem not to matter. This is what happens when people lose their heads. 
 
 There are a lot of people who will say that these issues are of secondary importance to the more important question of whether or not we have a compromised Russian agent in the White House. 
 
 But when it comes to Trump-Putin collusion, we're still waiting for the confirmation. As Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters put it, the proof is increasingly understood to be the thing we find later, as in, "If we do the investigations, we will find the connections." 
 
 But on the mass hysteria front, we already have evidence enough to fill a dozen books. And if it doesn't freak you out, it probably should. 
 
 Watch illustrator Victor Juhasz discuss what it means to draw President Donald Trump.
– Hillary Clinton spoke with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at Recode's CodeCon on Wednesday, and she did not hold back. In Vox's view, she spared her campaign but heaped plenty of blame on others, including Russia, the media, and the DNC. "I get the nomination, I'm now the nominee of the Democratic Party," she explained. "I inherit nothing from the Democratic Party," she says, emphasizing the word "nothing." Asked Mossberg, "What do you mean, nothing?" She continued, "I mean, it was bankrupt; it was on the verge of insolvency; its data was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, wrong. I had to inject money into it, the DNC, to keep it going." Donald Trump, on the other hand, did nothing himself related to data, she said, but inherited a $100 million "tried-and-true, effective" data foundation from the RNC. More: "I take responsibility for every decision I made, but that's not why I lost," Clinton said, per CNBC. "I was the victim of a very broad assumption that I was going to win." But that's not all. Politico reports she made the case, as she has done in the past, that former FBI Director James Comey's letter to Congress was part of her undoing. "The overriding issue that affected the election that I had any control over—because I had no control over the Russians—was the way the use of my email account was turned into the greatest scandal since Lord knows when. This was the biggest 'nothing burger' ever." And yet the media covered it "like it was Pearl Harbor," she said. As for the Russians, "If you look at Facebook, the vast majority of the news items posted were fake. They were connected to—as we now know—the 1,000 Russian agents who were involved in delivering those messages. They were connected to the bots that are just out of control." Vox points out that much of that statement is based on unconfirmed reports. Speaking of the Russians, "I thought it was a hidden message to the Russians," Clinton quipped about President Trump's "covfefe" tweet, reports Politico. "You’ve got all kinds of stuff happening. Why? To divert attention. It’s like 'covfefe'—trending worldwide. Maybe for a minute you'll forget the latest accusations about them conspiring with Russia or their trillion-dollar mathematical mistake in their budget or depriving 23 million people of health care." Mossberg asked Clinton why, if she knew she was going to run, she took on paid speaking engagements from Goldman Sachs. She shot back, "Why do you have Goldman Sachs here?" Replied Swisher, "Cause they pay us." Said Clinton, "They paid me."