NEW YORK, N.Y. — As a guest on ABC’s “The View” earlier this week, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice rebuffed liberal conspiracy theories that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin threw the 2016 presidential election for Donald Trump.

Rice politely discussed the hosts’ allegations surrounding this assertion. In particular, they seemed fixated on former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and their ties to Russia. However, when they predictably pressed her admit that Trump’s victory was illegitimate, she refused to budge.

About seven minutes into the interview, co-host Sunny Hostin asked, “But Madame Secretary, if he [Putin] indeed did engage in these kinds of tactics in the election, then the very legitimacy of our election is at issue isn’t it?”

Rice’s response was immediate and definitive.

“No,” Rice said. “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. 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’m don’t think we should take. Let’s trust our fellow citizens to have been smart enough to vote for the people they ought to be voting for.”

The “blame Russia” narrative emerged among liberal camps shocked at the tremendous upset of Hillary Clinton. According to a new book written by Clinton campaign insiders, the idea was hatched “within 24 hours” of the election loss.

Born in Birmingham, Ala., Rice served as the National Security Advisor for President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, and later followed Colin Powell as Bush’s Secretary of State. She was the first female NSA and the first female African-American Secretary of State. Currently, she works as a professor at Stanford University and as a fellow at the Hoover Institution.