Hillary Clinton appeared on "Today" Wednesday as part of her new book's tour to talk about her failed campaign for the presidency. It was her first live interview since the election, and it must have felt like the lion's den after she criticized host Matt Lauer and the media at large for the role they played in her election loss.
While Clinton admitted that she felt that the press helped Trump win the election, the former secretary of state said a confluence of factors led to her defeat — none bigger than former FBI Director James Comey's announcement that he had reopened his investigation into her emails.
"I was just dumbfounded," Clinton said of Comey's decision to reopen the case. "I thought, what is he doing? The investigation is closed. I knew there was no new information. And then it became clear. This was not necessary."
"Absent that I believe and I think the evidence shows I would have won," she added.
Clinton also addressed Russia's interference in the campaign, noting that there were a lot of strange coincidences surrounding Democratic Party emails.
"We know there was a lot of interesting coincidences, if you will, between what people associated with Trump were saying at the time, and what later came to pass," she said, pointing to the emails from her campaign manager, John Podesta, that leaked to the public.
"The Russians hacked those emails," Clinton said. "They stole them."
Clinton suggested that she has come to terms with the election results, but she firmly believes the country was not better off for it.
"I respect the fact that [Donald Trump] is the president. I just wish he were the president for all Americans," she said. "I wish he was not engaging in a lot of the scapegoating and behavior in office that I think is bad for this county."
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