Clinton's top press aide says she's 'moving on' - so she goes on ultra-liberal show to bleat about the FBI and call Russian hacking 'soul-crushing' 

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Hillary Clinton's Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri sat down with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow for her first post-election interview Monday night. 

'I'm glad it's December. November wasn't the best month,' the top press aide said. 'So , yeah, glad to be moving on.' 

She moved on, however, to blaming FBI Director James Comey's late-in-the-game letter for Clinton's loss, while also explaining to the liberal TV host why she found Russia's interference in the election 'soul crushing.' 

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Hillary Clinton's Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri sat down for her first post-election interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow 

Liberal TV host Rachel Maddow (left) tried to find out from top Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri what she thought went wrong in the 2016 election 

Palmieri told the MSNBC host that 'when you lose three states by less than 70,000 votes ... you do spend a lot of time thinking about what you could have done differently.' 

She said the losing Democratic campaign had made the best decisions they could using the data they had available at the time. 

What they found however, was that on election night 'basically, all the battleground states, we ended up being anywhere from five to two points lower than what we had predicted.' 

She noted how in states like Virginia and Colorado, where there was a nice cushion, it didn't matter and Clinton won.  

'But in Florida, North Carolina, Iowa ... Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, it wasn't enough,' she explained.  

'We spent a ton of time in Pennsylvania and we spent a lot of money in Pennsylvania and we still lost,' she noted. 'Actually, we lost that state worse than we lost Wisconsin and Michigan.' 

Suggesting that Jill Stein acted as a kind of spoiler for Clinton, Maddow pointed out how the Green Party hopeful received more votes than the difference between Trump and Clinton in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, the three states where Stein championed a recount. 

Hillary Clinton's Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri explained to Rachel Maddow why she tweeted the CIA revelations about Russia's intentions were 'soul-crushing' 

Palmieri agreed that is all of Stein's votes would have gone to Clinton, the former secretary of state would have won, but it wasn't the Green Party hopeful that the thought was truly responsible for the Democratic nominee's loss.  

'But what we think – what we think accounts for the big drop-off – I'm talking about a big drop-off, like five to two points in each of these states, is the Comey letter,' Palmieri said. 'And that isn't to say that there's not things that our campaign could have done better or differently or in retrospect we would do differently.' 

'I have dreams that we understand we have a problem, we have a week to fix them and then I wake up and it's not true,' she added.  

The Comey letter, sent to members of Congress by the FBI director on October 29, said new emails had been found 'pertinent to the investigation' into Clinton's secret server. 

Later, it was discovered that the new emails were found on a laptop given to the feds by disgraced ex-congressman Anthony Weiner, the spouse of Clinton aide Huma Abedin, for an unrelated sexting investigation. 

The Comey letter, Palmieri suggested, 'it was one thing too many to absorb.' 

Palmieri said she didn't want to believe that Comey was deliberately trying to sway the election toward Trump. 

'But it had an impact,' she said.  

'I think he was probably most likely just trying to cover himself with Republicans on Capitol Hill who had been giving him a lot of pressure if, you know, if – after the election, he was in a position of having to disclose more,' the aide noted. 

'But it was, you know, unprecedented, irresponsible and it had – regardless of what his intentions were, had a devastating impact,' she said.  

Upon seeing the Washington Post story in which Russia's intentions were made more clear, Jennifer Palmieri said it was 'soul crushing' 

Palmieri had also used the term 'soul-crushing' to describe the story put out by the Washington Post this weekend that said the CIA had come to the conclusion that Russia had interfered in the presidential election to give a hand to Trump.    

Maddow asked the press aide why she described the revelations as such. 

'I don't even remember that,' Palmieri said. 

She had written: 'Soul crushing are the only words I have. Can barely stand to read the story.'  

'It came from the bottom of a glass,' the liberal TV host offered.  

Palmieri said it was 'helpful' to have the CIA's assessment made public. 

'It is soul crushing because it's a little late to be learning this and also because during the campaign, particularly the month of October, we – the Clinton campaign, tried a lot to get more attention paid, particularly during what we were dealing with Wikileaks and John Podesta's emails being released,' she said. 

On October 7, the Director of National Intelligence put out a statement saying that Russia was interfering in the U.S. election, however the news cycle was eaten up that day by the release of Trump's tawdry 'Access Hollywood' tape, which looked like it would bring down the Republican's campaign. 

'Words we never thought would come out of our mouths: The Russians were trying to influence our election,' Palmieri continued. 'We knew that. We knew that ahead of the election, but it never got the attention that I think it should.' 

'And so, it's pretty soul crushing to have that come out now and confirm that they were, in fact, trying to help Donald Trump,' she said, pointing out that 30 years after the Cold War is wasn't 'something I ever imagined we'd have to worry about.' 

Palmieri told Maddow it was 'hard to know' if Russia had been successful in electing Trump, though said they 'certainly' succeeded in interfering. 

Maddow asked Palmieri about John Podesta's statement in which the Clinton campaign chairman backed efforts by a small percentage of the Electoral College members to receive an intelligence briefing on the Russian matter before making their final vote for president.  

'So I would just note that Hillary Clinton conceded the election and that has not changed that,' Palmieri said. 

 Jennifer Palmieri (left) said she supported John Podesta's move to support electors hoping to get an intelligence briefing before the Electoral College vote 

She said that while there are lawsuits swirling around the Electoral College, the Clinton campaign is not choosing to be involved.

'But this we felt, particularly since there was new information that we learned on Friday night about the intent of Russia, we thought this was a worthy ... effort for us to weigh in on,' she explained.   

She pointed out how the Electoral College, by design, was supposed to be a deliberative body. 

'And one of the reasons it exists is to protect against a foreign government from interfering in our elections,' Palmieri said.  

Even though she worked in politics, the top Clinton aide said she didn't know what the Electoral College process was supposed to be and what the role of the elector was supposed to be.

Historically, electors weren't tied to their state's popular vote. 

Palmieri pointed out that 'part of the theory is they meet a month later.' 

'So, if there's a new development, such as this, the electors have an opportunity to consider that,' she said.