Russia should "pay a price" for trying to affect the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, Sen. Lindsey Graham said.
The South Carolina Republican spoke with NBC's Chuck Todd for Sunday's edition of "Meet the Press" on the subject. A snippet of the interview was posted Friday evening.
Graham first reassured President-elect Donald Trump that lawmakers looking into Russian hacking claims are doing so in order to prevent future occurrences, not to delegitimize the election results.
"I think he's worried that inquiring into what Russia did in the election is gonna undermine his credibility, his legitimacy," Graham said. "Quite frankly, I haven't heard any Democrat at all of prominence say, 'we doubt Donald Trump won.' [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is not the reason that Clinton lost and Trump won.
"What we're trying to do is find out what the Russians did in our elections, and make sure that other people — including the Russians — won't do it next time."
Graham then said Trump should punish Russia for meddling in America's affairs.
"In a couple weeks, Donald Trump will be the defender of the free world and democracy," Graham said. "You should let everybody know in America — Republicans and Democrats — that you're going to make Russia pay a price for trying to interfere. Even though it didn't affect the outcome, they tried to interfere, and they need to pay a price.
"I don't care what their motives were."
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