Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton keep talking about election 6 months later
The election was nearly six months ago.
— -- The presidential election took place nearly six months ago, but neither of the major-party candidates can seem to let it go.
Former Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton has spoken about the election during her infrequent public appearances since her loss, but she went into more detail than she had before at an event earlier this week.
At Tuesday's event, hosted by Women for Women International -- an organization that works for equality and higher standards of living for women in war-torn countries around the world -- Clinton said she took "absolute personal responsibility" for the loss, but went on to list several other contributing factors, and people.
“I was on the way to winning until a combination of [FBI Director] Jim Comey's letter on Oct. 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me but got scared off," Clinton said. "And the evidence for that intervening event is I think compelling, persuasive, and so we overcame a lot in the campaign.”
She also needled President Donald Trump for his regular references to his Electoral College win, which he has called a "landslide." Trump garnered 306 electoral votes.
"He should worry less about the election and my winning the popular vote than doing some other things that would be important to the country," she said at the event.
Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million ballots, but Trump repeatedly suggested, without giving evidence, that her victory was due to widespread voter fraud.
Last November, in the wake of the election, Clinton pointed to Comey's letter, announcing that the FBI was investigating potential new evidence in her email probe, as being responsible in part for her loss.
But she quipped about the loss in a March question-and-answer at her alma mater, Wellesley College, saying if there was anything she could change about the election: "I'd win."
Trump has commented numerous times about his election win and why he lost the popular vote and once again discussed the subject ahead of his 100th day in office.
On April 27, Trump met with three Reuters reporters in the Oval Office.
During the interview, Trump reportedly cut short a conversation about Chinese President Xi Jinping to hand out copies to each journalist of a map showing the 2016 election results.
"It’s pretty good, right? The red is obviously us," he said, referencing the states that were colored red to represent Republican wins.
The next day, during his speech at the National Rifle Association's convention in Georgia, Trump retold the story about a series of surprise state wins that he collected: Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Pennsylvania.
The Upper Midwest and Pennsylvania were widely expected to go to Clinton.
"We ran up the East Coast. And, you know, the Republicans have a tremendous disadvantage in the Electoral College, you know that. Tremendous disadvantage. And to run the whole East Coast, and then you go with Iowa and Ohio, and all of the different states. It was a great evening, one that a lot people will never forget -- a lot of people," Trump said.
"That was some evening. Big sports fans said that was the single most exciting event they've ever seen. That includes Super Bowls and World Series and boxing matches, that was an exciting evening for all of us and it meant a lot," he said.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted that Comey gave Clinton a "free pass for many bad deeds" and that the Democrats were using the investigation into potential ties between Trump associates and Russian officials as an excuse for losing.
His most recent reference to the election came this morning, on his 105th day in office. He tweeted about the news that former President Obama's former National Security Adviser Susan Rice "is refusing to testify before a Senate Subcommittee next week on allegations of unmasking Trump transition officials. Not good!"
Trump has previously stated that accusations of Rice’s involvement in the "unmasking" of Trump associates during the transition vindicated his baseless wiretapping claims against President Obama.
Additional reporting by Alex Mallin.