Graham: I Haven't Seen Anyone "Of Prominence" Say Putin Is The Reason Trump Won The Election

Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain sit down with NBC's Chuck Todd to discuss the classified briefing given to Donald Trump about Russia's role in hacking the DNC during the 2016 election, and how Trump is responding to such allegations. <blockquote>SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: Here's the deal for me. I think he's worried that inquiring into what Russia did in the election is going to undermine his credibility and his legitimacy. Quite frankly, I haven't heard any democrat at all of prominence say that we doubt that Donald Trump won. Putin is not the reason that Clinton lost and Trump won. I don't think anybody's saying that, so Mr. President-elect, that's not what we're trying to do. What we're trying to do is find out what the Russians did in our elections and make sure that other people, including the Russians won't do it next time. No doubt in my mind that Russians interfered, that John Podesta's emails were hacked by the Russians and not some 14-year-old kid or 300-pound guy and that the DNC was compromised by the Russians and it seems pretty clear that Wikileaks got it from the Russians. It didn't affect the outcome, but they tried to affect our elections. He'll be the defender of the free world pretty soon. In a couple of weeks Donald Trump will be the defender of the free world, you should let everybody know in America, republicans and democrats that you should make Russia pay a price and they need to pay a price for trying to interfere, even though it didn't affect the outcome, they tried to interfere and they need to pay a price, and I don't care what their motives were. CHUCK TODD: Why do you think he continues to question intelligence on this? GRAHAM: I think he's worried about it undermining -- TODD: You think it's personal? GRAHAM: Because he said it's time to move on. Remember when he was asked about, maybe on New Year's Eve, 'let's just get on with our lives.' Here's my retort to that. Our lives are built around the idea that we're free people, that we go to the ballot box and we have political contests outside of foreign interference. You can't go on with your life as a democracy when a foreign entity is trying to compromise the election process. So, Mr. President-elect, it is very important that you show leadership here. Let me say this. If after having been briefed by our intelligence leaders, Donald Trump is still unsure as to what the Russians did that would be incredibly unnerving to me because the evidence is overwhelming. All I'm asking him is to acknowledge that Russia interfered and push back. It could be Iran next time. It could be China. It was democrats today, and it could be republicans in the next election.</BLOCKQUOTE> Watch the full interview: <iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e3gY5QgF3VA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>