Trump National Security Aide Sounds Off on Him and Russia: 'His Fixation Was on Putin'

Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Fiona Hill

In the view of one of Donald Trump's former National Security Council officials, Russia most likely had something on the former president, even if it was just insight — and it wasn't necessarily something tangible.

Trump's enduring affinity for Russia's autocratic president, Vladimir Putin, has long stirred curiosity. Critics have gone so far as to argue the country must have some leverage over him, which he has dismissed.

But Fiona Hill, a Trump aide who later spoke out against his foreign policy, tells The Daily Beast in a new interview, that Putin had a "recognition of [Trump's] extreme vulnerability to manipulation."

In other words? Putin, 68, knew how to handle the now 75-year-old Trump's ego, Hill said.

Speaking to the site to coincide with the release of her new memoir, There Is Nothing for You Here, Hill, 56, said Trump's ego made him something of a "national security risk."

"[Trump was] a counter-intelligence and national security risk because he was so vulnerable to manipulation based on the fragility of his ego," she told the Beast.

Hill, who specialized in Russian and European affairs, stopped short of saying Trump was fixated on Russia, however. Instead, she believes Trump's focus was on Putin, whom he has publicly praised numerous times in the past.

"For Trump, his fixation was on Putin. It wasn't on Russia it was on Putin himself, it's what he saw in Putin that he saw many qualities that he wanted to have himself," Hill said in an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Tuesday, according to a report by The Hill.

She continued: "The biggest thing was the ability to manipulate, because what Vladimir Putin likes to do is find out what buttons he can push, you know, people's vulnerabilities, and that's what he honed into in the case of President Trump."

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Hill, who began working at the NSC in 2017, was something of a black sheep in the Trump administration. Recounting her first day on the job to The Daily Beast, Hill said she came to the White House after scrambling to get out the door due to a sick child.

Arriving to the Oval Office in a pair of black sneakers, Hill said, she was told by then-National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster to keep her feet hidden. When the president's daughter Ivanka Trump strode in to the room in high heels, she shot Hill "a look," Hill claimed.

Few around Trump warmed to Hill during her tenure, she said, with former Chief of Staff Reince Preibus reportedly nicknaming her, "Russia B----," she told the Beast.

Hill made headlines in 2019 when she delivered striking testimony during Trump's first impeachment inquiry on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in connection with his Ukraine scandal.

Though he was impeached by the House of Representatives, Trump was ultimately acquitted by the Senate (and impeached by the House yet again in 2021).

Now, speaking to The Daily Beast, Hill projects that Trump will be either the Republican nominee for president again in 2024 or have a big hand in who ultimately is. "He wanted to be king. He still wants to be king and regain his throne," she said.

In a statement on Thursday, Trump dismissed Hill as "terrible at her job" and accused of her of being a part of the so-called "Deep State" government officials who wanted him to fail.

"Fiona Hill was a Deep State stiff with a nice accent. Books are being written by people like her who had virtually no access to me, and who I didn't even know," he said.