While he was running for president as the candidate of the Republican party? Yes of course!

Does your argument really come down to trying to parse a difference between Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party?

I'd note the "hack the Democrats" was the OPs characterisation of what happened. If you'd prefer to claim that Trump asked Russia to hack Hillary Clinton I'm not going to try to argue that point.

I think "Trump asked the Russians to find Hillary Clinton's emails" is entirely uncontroversial. Saying he asked the Russians to "hack" the "Democrats" involves two inferences and seems like a statement designed to maximize discord. The Russians are not in Donald Trump's chain of command, there are other ways to find her emails than hacking, and Hillary Clinton is not "the Democrats".

This will be my last post on the topic because it reminds of the "blue dress/green dress" thing someone posted way up thread. I'm sure you're posting in good faith, and I assure you I am too, but it is just not at all obvious to me why someone would say "Donald Trump asked the Russians to hack the Democrats" instead of "Donald Trump asked the Russians to find Hillary Clinton's emails".

Elsewhere you've asked people to prove that Trump made the statement, which people did. Please now prove that this was "obvious political riffing," whatever that means.

No, his statement, which was linked, was not in fact what the claim said.

Okay, he didn't say "the Democrats," he said Clinton's emails. Is that really better? Please prove he was joking.