The former Soviet Union had a name for people who are easily manipulated — a "useful idiot" — and GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump falls into that category, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Monday.
"Trump falls into that category of people that are manipulated also by the Russians, and the Russians are trying to interfere in our democracy because they don't have one themselves," Albright told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, laying blame on the WikiLeaks-released emails that have cast doubt on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign.
The stolen emails are "leaks that are being manipulated by the Russians," said Albright, pointing to intelligence community reports that are "validating" the Russian connection and showing how "they are trying to do something that hasn't been done before, to interfere in the electoral process.
"As you know, I spent a lot of my life looking at what goes on in Russia," the former secretary of state told Mitchell. "This is stunning. It is an interference in our democratic affairs."
Clinton has apologized and said she made a mistake by using a private email server while serving as secretary of state, said Albright, but still, it must be taken into consideration where the leaks are coming from, "the interference by a foreign government in the system and the fact that Trump invited the Russians to get involved with this."
"This is a national security issue in terms of the Russians, of being really a part of what we treasure, which is our democratic process," said Albright. "Then Trump is falling into whether he's part of the plan or falls into traps, kind of talking about elections being rigged about voter suppression.
"I have never seen a mind meld of this kind between the Russian leadership and a candidate for the presidency of the United States."
Trump was briefed during intelligence briefings about what the Russians are doing, Albright continued, "and he's playing their game instead of being concerned about America's democratic system."
Albright also discussed the issue of women and how they're reacting to allegations of sexual abuse that have been lobbied against Trump, saying there are "no words to describe the action of women to what Trump said."
"It goes from disgusting to unprintable to really just so appalled at the kinds of things he says," Albright said of women's reactions to the issue.
And on Saturday, when Trump said the women were all lying and he plans to sue them is "just stunning," she continued. "He does live in a parallel universe . . . People are fed up with the kind of language that he, and the allegations that he, is making that absolutely don't make any sense."