Hillary Clinton should 'take responsibility' for losing to Donald Trump and 'move on', says David Axelrod

'She said the words "I'm responsible" but everything else suggested that she doesn't really feel that way'

Hillary Clinton has previously said she takes 'absolute personal responsibility' for her election defeat (Getty)

Barack Obama’s former campaign manager has told Hillary Clinton to “move on” and suggested she should take more responsibility for her defeat to Donald Trump.

David Axelrod, who ran Mr Obama’s 2008 campaign and later served as his senior adviser, said Ms Clinton was wrong to not put campaign resources into key states such as Wisconsin and Michigan that were eventually won by Donald Trump.

"It takes a lot of work to lose to Donald Trump," Mr Axelrod told CNN. "Let me tell you, he was the least popular presidential candidate to win in the history of polling."

Ms Clinton has said she took responsibility for her defeat but suggested she would have won had FBI director James 'Jim' Comey not announced, days before the election, that he was reopening an investigation into her use of a private email server.

“I take absolute personal responsibility – I was the candidate, I was the person who was on the ballot”, Ms Clinton said at a “Women for Women” event in New York.

“Did we make mistakes? Of course we did. Did I make mistakes? Oh my gosh yes.

“It wasn’t a perfect campaign — there is no such thing — but I was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey’s letter on 28 October and Russian Wikileaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me and got scared off.”

However, Mr Axelrod suggested Ms Clinton had consistently failed for take responsibility for her mistakes.

“She has a legitimate beef because Comey's letter was instrumental, I think, in her defeat, so in a narrow sense she is right about it,” he said.

"But Jim Comey didn't tell her not to campaign in Wisconsin after the convention. Jim Comey didn't say don't put any resources into Michigan until the final week of the campaign.

“And one of the things that hindered her in the campaign was a sense that she never fully was willing to take responsibility for her mistakes, particularly that server.

"If I were her, if I were advising her, I would say, 'Don't do this. Don't go back and appear as if you're shifting responsibility.' ... She said the words 'I'm responsible,' but everything else suggested that she doesn't really feel that way.

"And I don't think that helps her in the long run, so if I were her I would move on."