....admitted that the third party vote actually had an influence and won Trump the election.
I don't want to get in the middle of WWE Smackdown here, because I'm really only at this wrestling match to gloat from the sidelines. BUT...
Your hypothesis only holds true if almost every voter who went third party voted for Clinton instead.
Let's take Wisconsin's critical 10 Electoral Votes as an example primarily because Wisconsin was the closest of the "surprise" states.
Here's how the voting broke down:
Donald Trump 1,409,467
Hillary Clinton 1,382,210
Gary Johnson 106,442
Jill Stein 30,980
Darrell Castle 12,179
Monica Moorehead 1,781
Rocky De La Fuente 1,561
Every third party vote in Wisc came up to 152,943. Trump led by 27,247 in the final count.
So for Clinton to win Wisconsin's Electoral Votes, she would have to capture 103,718 of the third party votes. (Half + 27,248). That's 68%. Even at 68% she wins by only a single vote.
Of every county in the entire state, Clinton topped 55% in just two and 65% in just one. She wasn't getting 68% of the third party vote.
It might have been closer, but the wasted third party votes didn't hand Trump the election. They were just wasted. He would have won with or without them.