HOSTIN: But Madam Secretary, if he indeed did engage in these types of tactics in our election, then the very legitimacy of our election is at issue, isn’t it?

Rice immediately shot that narrative down, as grasping at straws and showing a mistrust in the American people’s intelligence.

RICE: No, no. That’s where I — first of all, I don’t want to question his motives beyond he’s an eye for an eye kind of person. Secondly, I trust the people who voted in Wisconsin and Texas and Alabama and California to have voted on the basis of who they thought was best going to represent their interests. And so I’m not going to question the legitimacy of their vote because Vladimir Putin tried to interfere in the elections. That’s just a step that I don’t think we should take. Let’s trust our fellow citizens to have been smart enough to have voted for the people they thought they ought to be voting for.

(NEWSBUSTERS)