Hillary Clinton talks tagging polar bears with Vladimir Putin on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”

©2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc./Scott Kowalchyk(LOS ANGELES) — Hillary Clinton stopped by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night to promote her book, What Happened, about the 2016 presidential election. 

The major topic of conversation, no surprise, turned out to be Russian meddling in the campaign — just one of the many factors on which Clinton blames her electoral defeat at the hands of President Donald Trump.

“I don’t think anybody can with a straight face say that the Russians did not set out to influence our election, and they did so,” Clinton said. “This latest revelation about the way they bought ads on Facebook and targeted them — we’re gonna find out a lot more, Stephen.”

Clinton explained Russian President Vladimir Putin’s motives, and sounded a cautionary note.

“He wants to undermine how we see each other, how we respect each other, how we support our institutions and our society,” Clinton said.  “I think they believe they had a good outing in 2016 and I think that they will be back in 2018 and 2020 unless we stop them.”

She suggested that if collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia is proven — and despite exhaustive investigation and seemingly endless coverage, it isn’t — people need to take political action.

“What you do is mobilize politically to express your will and your rejection of that kind of Russian involvement and coordination at the ballot box. I mean, that is where we settle our political differences, and that’s where it should be,” she said.

Clinton also told a story about Putin from her time as secretary of state.  “He takes me…into this inner sanctum with this huge desk and the biggest map of Russia I think exists, and he started telling me he’s going here to tag polar bears. And then he says to me, ‘Would your husband like to come?'” Clinton recalled. “I said, ‘Well, I’ll ask him, but if he’s busy, I’ll go.'”

Copyright © 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.

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