Is Trump a Russian asset? Fiona Hill on the President she worked for | The News Agents

Some people say, "Is Donald Trump a Russian asset?"

He actually had a very different risk calculation. He got emboldened. Trump himself is very prone to conspiracy theories.

Trump would sometimes pick up on things and you'd realize this is Russian propaganda. She's become a kind of King George.

Well, he's capturing something that at present is accurate. I mean, the United States and Israel have gone to war together against Iran. And that obviously is indicative of a very deep and very important relationship. And it was done, of course, for Israel's security. Now there are historic reasons, you know, for why the United States is so heavily invested in the relationship with Israel. I mean, the United States was one of, you know, the first countries to recognize the creation of Israel. I mean, there have been some tensions, you know, obviously in that relationship over time, but of course if you look at the composition of the US population in terms of religious affiliation, and we also know that often Judaism is at least linked or associated with, you know, an identity that goes beyond just a pure religious affiliation, rightly or wrongly, let's just stress that because that obviously is controversial, but you don't always think, for example, that, you know, people who are Presbyterians are all Scots or people who are Church of England, just using the kind of British examples, are all English, you know, for example, Episcopalian, but there is a tendency to, you know, associate that with a larger identity. And of course the largest population of people who identify as Jewish outside of Israel is in the United States, about 7 million. Now, of course, there's all of the back and forth about the implications of all of this, but the United States has been very committed to the support of Israel for a long time. There is a very important constituency in terms of voters and others who support Israel. There's lots of exchanges back and forth, but over time I would say certainly from the first Trump administration onwards you've seen a much closer relationship emerging with the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, which I think has been quite different from perhaps, you know, more of a general support of Israel that we might have seen under previous administrations.

Well, it does get back actually to that point about the relationship with Israel. This has been an extraordinarily close one in terms of intelligence and, you know, in terms of political relationships, also focused on the creation of the Abraham Accords. I mean, that has become a kind of a cornerstone of US policy in the Middle East as well. And I think when you're referring back to Suez, the United States had a very different position on how it saw the Middle East unfolding at the time. It saw France and the UK, I mean, there's a certain irony in all of this, of course, as colonial powers that were still kind of basically trying to intervene in a way that the United States at that time disapproved of. And, you know, as the relationships have shifted, of course, if you think back to 1956 and Suez, the French realized that their relationship with the United States wasn't too special, and they, you know, tended to chart their own path in terms of their affiliation with NATO and other choices they made, including on their nuclear defense, for example. And the UK took the opposite decision to kind of double down on the relationship and tried to hug the United States closer. But over time, all these tensions had built up with the United States and the United Kingdom. If you think back to Iraq and 2003, of course, it was actually another war that was decided on in conjunction with the United Kingdom then in 2003 with Iraq. I mean, Tony Blair and the Blair government were heavily involved in that decision making about Iraq. But, you know, fast forward 23 years, we've obviously had a lot of shifts. And I think that this is actually what we're looking at here. We've got a shifting world order. We've got shifting perceptions of alliances. Donald Trump and people around him have felt that the UK, along with many other European countries, notwithstanding the UK's involvement in Iraq and, you know, before that in Afghanistan, have not been, you know, moving in step with the way that the United States emphasis on its global posture has shifted. Now again, I said this is not without irony because in the national security strategy that was published just last year in 2025, the United States seemed to downplay its positions and interests in the Middle East. It had the Western Hemisphere, its own region of Canada, Mexico and all the rest at the top. I mean, basically restoring the defensive posture of the United States within its own region, immediate region. Then of course was the Asia Pacific. We've been having this pivot in the United States towards Asia going back to the Obama era, but actually still very much emphasizing that China and what was happening in the Asia Pacific was uppermost, and then the Middle East was after that. But I think, you know, that point in 2025, that idea of the Abraham Accords, that kind of cornerstone keeping Iran at bay, you know, would have been, I think from the United States perspective, very much settled. Now obviously those circumstances have changed, but we did see the United Kingdom and Europe. There was a bit of a shout out to the UK and Ireland as sort of having still a special affection in the United States thinking about Europe. But it was very much clear from the national security strategy that the whole intent was that Europe was going to pick up the slack, move on, that the United States was no longer. In fact, this has been again back to Obama and even earlier an admonition to the UK and Europe to stand on your own two feet, you know, do more in terms of your, you know, support for your own defense, etc. But you've never really got away from that tie that the United States is very much still responsible for Israel's defense and protection as well.

Well, look, I mean, in terms of how things are all going to play out in this very turbulent and difficult geopolitical context, you know, that question of safer or less safe, I mean, we are in many respects less safe than we were before already because of all of these rifts and these ruptures, the fact that, you know, the UK and other allies were not consulted about the decision to go after Iran, take out the Ayatollah and the leadership, and then to, you know, basically move forward with an operation where I think, I mean, even within the United States itself and very much so within the Five Eyes states, there was already a reckoning in intelligence and other circles that it was highly likely, if not inevitable, that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz. So that already gives you a kind of a sense. And I think I just want to, you know, get back to actually the question as the way that you framed it. I think what people are seeing now that they didn't perhaps see the first time round, and perhaps, you know, people like myself and others have something to blame for that, that there were a lot of constraints and checks and balances still around Trump. He wasn't uninhibited and unconstrained. I think there were more people who were willing at that point to basically push back at some of the positions that he wanted to take.

I think there were some things that he actually had a very different risk calculation. So I think he was more cognizant of the fact that some things could go wrong the first term. So I think what we've seen over the course of a very quick course of his first year is he got emboldened by his ability to kind of impress his will both at home and abroad.

I think you are. I think you're starting to see it in all kinds of different fronts. It might not be coalescing, but he is getting pushback at home from the courts because they take, you know, quite some time to kind of build up here. Maybe not in the way that people might want from the Supreme Court, but certainly you're still getting, you know, the undercutting of his position on tariffs. You know, for example, you saw in Minneapolis, in Minnesota, people in the population there pushing back. You're getting a lot of questions actually in the Congress right now about, you know, the necessity, as you were already saying there, John, about was this really wise to attack Iran, as you said. I mean, the Congress didn't have any say in this too. There's all kinds of questions, you know, about this, and questions about, you know, the kind of natures of the, you know, the relationships, you know, as a result that have, you know, playing out across the Middle East. But you are, you know, starting to see a lot of people at the level of the states and big cities, you know, the kind of question, the way that Trump is behaving. And of course, I think that you've got a couple of watershed moments. Iran is definitely one of them because the fallibility of the premise has now been proven, and all of the people who Trump would have seen as naysayers about talking about Iran, you know, going forward with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, this was well known. This is one of the reasons why previous governments didn't do anything. And also within Israel itself, it was well known. I mean, you see within Israel many of the intelligence people, both retired and current, and former generals saying exactly the same thing. This was magical thinking that there would be no response like this from Iran. But prior to that, you've got Greenland, and, you know, you've also then had this whole series of insults and calling out Vladimir Zelensky in the Oval Office, and just incident after incident where I think it's really got people focused now that this is a person who is uninhibited and basically just now does whatever he wants, and he is not even responsive to public opinion or even to, you know, voter opinion. We'll see what happens in the midterms in his own country, let alone internationally.

I mean, this is like kind of an irony to me. You know, we talk about papal infallibility, but Trump's basically saying, "No, I'm infallible. I, Donald Trump, and the Pope is very fallible." I mean, taking the Pope on on theology, on just war theory, and on just, you know, any of his pronouncements. I mean, Trump has at this point, you know, in the kind of the American lexicon, you know, sort of, you know, that expression jumped the shark, gone a bit too far. This was from Happy Days and the Fonz in some kind of ridiculous show. I mean, I remember that. I'm not sure that everybody else remembers this, where, you know, the Fonz is out water skiing and jumps over a shark, and people think, "Okay, they've lost it. They can't come up with any more plot lines." And that's kind of, I think, that feeling is starting to happen in the US that Trump is just going too far now.

Well, it's basically like President Xi, you know, of China. There's this whole idea that for Trump, he has very few peers on the global stage. And of course, from his point of view, it's the ultimate strongmen are the people that he associates himself with. So as he's dissed the Pope and dismissed the Pope, that's kind of removed as one person with global reach and global recognition. And as far as he's concerned, the people who have got the most control, the most power, the most authority are Vladimir Putin on the one hand and President Xi on the other. And then within that, we started talking about the erosion of the UK-US special relationship, which has been, you know, ongoing for quite some period of time. But within that, there is a very special relationship with the royal family and with the King, and prior to that with the Queen, because they have a cachet that Trump also doesn't have. They have global recognition and global respect. They may not have the same kind of powers in a constitutional or, you know, real pragmatic sense as Xi and Putin do, but for Trump, they're people who are at the apex or the very top of a vertical of power. And as far as he's concerned, you know, if you went round the man in the street and said, "Who's this?" I mean, chances are most people would recognize Putin and Xi, even if they couldn't come up with their names, say, "Oh, that's, you know, the Russian leader or that's the Chinese leader." And of course, most people would recognize either, you know, Queen Elizabeth II, now deceased, their Queen, and then, of course, King Charles. And that's kind of what Putin, you know, for him, for Trump, is he wants his respect and he wants to kind of bask in a way in reflected glory of Putin.

Yes, he has something tangible, valuable and tangible that Trump wants, which is his respect, his adoration.

Well, look, that's compromising, right? So if you're, if you are, well, it's very compromising because if you are a KGB agent, you're looking for someone's biggest weakness and vulnerability. How can you manipulate them and how can you turn them into an asset, witting or unwitting? You know, if it's witting, you know, obviously with money and all kinds of things and compromising material, which we all have on Donald Trump. I mean, come on, I mean, how many lawsuits have there been? You know, how many exposés of things that he's done and said, and the corruption in the United States now that people are documenting is phenomenal of him and around of his family. So what could Putin possibly... are there be more than that? Very clear. I mean, perhaps there is something, but, you know, Trump has been going to Russia since the 1980s, and it's very clear that he responds to flattery. And even, you know, at the time in his first visits, everybody is seeing him as a sort of celebrity business person who has political aspirations. So of course they would be courting him, and so Putin is playing on that desire to be recognized as the greatest, you know, world historic figure. One of the first things that Putin said about Trump, even when he hadn't really met him, was something about he's a very... used this word, this Russian term, yarkaya lichnost, and yarki is, you know, it was translated as bright, unique. I mean, it can also be a slightly kind of backhanded compliment in the kind of Russian sense. Yeah, he really stands out. You know, it's kind of, yes, he shines a bit too bright, yeah, a bit too brightly, exactly. He's a bit of a, you know, kind of person you don't see too, you know, too often around. And so Putin's very carefully doled out access to him for Trump. I mean, he'll say things when he wants to kind of lure Trump in that, you know, suggest that he said nice things about him, and Trump immediately kind of responds. You know, in a way, I mean, it's almost as if they're in a kind of relationship, you know, certainly of a kind of romance where Putin is making sure he's a bit hard to get. And he's making himself a bit aloof and a bit inaccessible. He's not pandering and fawning all over Donald Trump, and same with Xi, and obviously the King is not doing this either. So he's not... so in a way he is turning him into an... because Trump wants to have basically Putin's respect and praise at all times. He also is a bit intimidated by him as well, I would say.

It is a ridiculous question, but yes, it's obvious that that is the realm that we're in now. And it is a realm of misinformation, deliberate disinformation that again is a vulnerability for exploitation from the outside. So, I mean, if you think about Russia and getting back to this, you know, what does Putin have? I mean, again, he knows that Trump himself is very prone to conspiracy theories, that Trump lives in a world of memes and all kinds of tropes, and on his Truth Social, and, you know, he will actually take on board anything that is fed to him. This is another massive weakness. I mean, when I was in the first administration, Trump would sometimes pick up on things, you'd realize this is Russian propaganda. That's actually what I said in the first impeachment, and the Russians are just amplifying all of this because they know that Trump will believe it. And if you think about the downing of MH17, the Malaysian Airlines flight across Ukraine, for example, remember the Russians said, "Oh, this was a CIA action," or, "Oh, this was, you know, the Ukrainians firing on what they thought was Putin's plane that was crossing over territory nearby." And just so many... it was a plane that was filled with corpses that the CIA had produced from somewhere. This was literally, you know, one of the ideas. The same thing with the Skripal poisonings in Salisbury. The UK did it to itself, you know, etc., etc., etc. There's all of these plays all the time, but these are the kinds of plays that Trump likes to engage in as well. Thinking about the accidental shelling or missile attack on the girls' school in Iran, Trump immediately says, "Well, maybe that was Iran." I mean, it can't be, no, but that's the kind of... that's...

He wants to believe it, but he also wants to deflect in the same way. And again, there's a vulnerability in all of that when you yourself are playing in that realm. It's one of the reasons that I think in the first time around many of us resolved that the reason that he did not want to go after Russian misinformation, disinformation operations was because he wanted to engage in them himself. And if you go after foreign malign actors, you have to go after domestic malign actors because they're using the same techniques. You know, the role of super PACs, the political action committees, that's what Putin has. I mean, essentially the troll factory that Yevgeny Prigozhin used to run. And so in a sense, John, you're asking that question about being an asset, I mean, that's how Trump is an asset, because he's got all these fallibilities, these weaknesses, these frailties, these, you know, vulnerabilities. He loves a good conspiracy.

Well, I mean, I didn't get a chance to say these things. I mean, he certainly said them, you know, publicly during the impeachment, but I'm not the kind of person that he would listen to. Bolton would try, John Bolton and H.R. McMaster. I mean, there were lots of his, you know, senior, you know, staff, the DNI at the time, Dan Coats, Gina Haspel when she was the CIA director, Pompeo, Mike Pompeo as well. And these, everybody would try to kind of refute these and just, yeah, I think it's highly unlikely that someone's doing this now. Now the people around him, many of the people around him, including the current CIA director, of course, they know better, but there's nobody really then trying to push back against all of this, and frankly they can't. I mean, he's on the phone 24/7 with people. He's on Truth Social every five seconds. He's got all kinds of people, you know, making memes and things for him that he's obviously not doing any quality control over. And I think, you know, the biggest risk at this point is just how many people can manipulate Trump. And I think that will be, you know, part of the questioning of, you know, as I said before, I mean, there are good reasons why the United States has a special and particular relationship with Israel. But I think there'll be a lot of questions later on as one, you know, goes back to this about how much was Trump, you know, manipulated or persuaded by things that he wanted to hear rather than kind of listening to the alternatives. And that's kind of part the problem. Putin and others feed him things that he wants to hear.