The Russians succeeded, I believe, beyond their wildest expectations. Their first objective in the election was to sow discontent, discord, and disruption in our political life, and they have succeeded to a fare-thee-well. They have accelerated, amplified the polarization and the divisiveness in this country and they've undermined our democratic system. They wanted to create doubt in the minds of the public about our government and about our system; and they succeeded to a fare-thee-well. They've been emboldened and they will continue to do this.

We're talking about nuclear war with North Korea. We're talking about Russia. Does it feel like the world has shifted? Are we all just in Donald Trump's reality show now?

Trump is very skillful at identifying - even if he can't quite get it clear, or precisely describe it - but that's what he wants to do, is always have something to use against people, even if it's distorted.

I've expressed concern about the assaults on our institutions, both from external sources - meaning the Russians - and internal sources. And I think this will be a real test of the resilience of our system and its pillars.

The president sets the tone. He creates the atmosphere, and that can be enlightened, progressive, or it can be intimidating, depending on what the president's agenda is. I think the other dimension of this that I worry about is impacts overseas with friends and allies, many of whom are very, very concerned about America's position in the world and whether or not it's going to continue its leadership, which has been the prevalent condition since World War II.

First Russians objective was - as I said earlier - to sow discord, discontent, disruption. And their next objective was - because of the very strong personal animus that Putin himself had for both Clintons, both President Clinton and Secretary Clinton - and he particularly held her responsible for what he felt was an attempted color revolution in 2011 to attempt to overturn him. So, he had very strong hatred - personal hatred - towards her, and that kind of led him to - if I'm opposed to her, who am I going to favor?

What I said was, ‘the NSA does not voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens’ e-mails.’ I stand by that.