MSNBC host Van Susteren smacks down Priebus for downplaying Russian hacks: 'This is extremely serious'

Former Fox News host Greta Van Susteren launched her new show on MSNBC Monday night, lecturing GOP head Reince Priebus for trying to diminish the severity of Russian involvement in the 2016 election.

While Priebus, who will serve as President-elect Donald Trump's chief of staff, said the new administration would look into the hacks, he attempted to blame the Democratic National Committee instead of the perpetrators.

"As you may know, what the Trump administration is going to do is order a report and a recommendations back within 90 days of the people we have at DNI and then the CIA and Homeland Security and others to look at what we need to do to be better at protecting ourselves from cyberattack," Priebus said. "But also what recommendation we have an a response to some of the things that have been occurring."

"What's getting lost is some of the things I've have talk about over the last few days," he continued. "Yeah, this was a hack and, yes, by foreign entities. But it's also scaled in magnitude because the DNC had no defenses in place in order to prevent the hack. This is a type of hack, Greta, where someone send you a e-mail that says 'I'm stranded in Mali, i need $20,000. send it to you me.' And you have people at the DNC hit the link. The the FBI calls the DNC multiple times over months and the DNC doesn't respond. I don't think we would be talking about this if they had some basic defense in place or returned a phone call."

Van Susteren then pulled Priebus up short, by bring up Russian President Vladimir Putin actions, a topic Trump advocates usually avoid.

"Alright, I used the word mischief and I don't want the viewers to this is isn't serious," the MSNBC host told Priebus. "And even if the DNC could have had better protection, I still see this as extremely serious and I think it's very bad conduct of Putin towards the  United States showing bad intent even if the DNC could have done better job protecting themselves."

Watch the video below via MSNBC: