Document:Fiona Hill interviewed on Channel 4 News
| "You could describe it as World War III" |
interview by Matt Frei dated 11 April 2025Subjects: Donald Trump/Second presidency, Fiona Hill
Source: Channel 4 News (Link)
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Fiona Hill interviewed on Channel 4 News
| "You could describe it as World War III" |
On 11 April 2025, Fiona Hill was interviewed in Washington D.C. by Channel 4's Matt Frei. A portion of the interview was broadcast on Channel 4 News at 7pm.[1] Channel 4 published the full 36-minute interview on The Fourcast podcast on its YouTube channel:[2]
We are definitely on a path towards full-on state repression there's no question about it. But I guess what you're saying is that we really need to look under the slab at what's happening to government, to institutions, to independent minds in the United States right now. It's a revolution, it's a coup, you can call it what you want.
It's pretty obvious that this is a hostile takeover using the electoral system of the US government. Do you think there is a danger that all these things could actually lead to a proper shooting war? We're already in a situation where you could describe this as World War III. When do people wake up to the fact that this is a disaster for this country?
Matt Frei: Welcome to the Fourcast this time from Washington DC as America and China go to war. Not a real war, not yet anyway, but a trade war. Which is pretty significant when it involves the two biggest economies on the planet. Now the market turmoil of the last week, which has had a bit of a reprieve because the tariff deadline has been delayed by 90 days on most tariffs, has raised some really serious questions. Can Donald Trump tell the difference between friend and foe? Can America still be trusted? Is there a cunning plan to all the stuff that he seems to be making up on a daily basis?
Now these are really important questions because it's only well not even a 100 days into the Trump presidency and we've got at least another three and a half years to go of this, so where does this all end up? Someone who knows Trump well because she works, worked with him, and worked for other presidents as well by the way, is Fiona Hill a Russia expert a foreign policy expert someone that Trump hasn't always been very kind about but we're being very kind to her today because she's here with us in Washington. Fiona, what did he or his people call you, just remind us?
Fiona Hill: Well according to what I heard, I was apparently termed the "Russia Bitch". I suppose well a bit later he called me "a deep state stiff with a nice accent" in a very formal statement but the other I guess moniker was thrown about behind the scenes at various points.
MF: And that's because you testified against him in the Russia impeachment trials of 2019 I think, and then of course you had your security clearance scrapped. But in fact the truth about that is that you never asked for it to be renewed is that right?
FH: Yeah, there's always more than meets the eye to many of these performative gestures but of course you have to take them seriously because you're in the crosshairs and that's a a shot across the bows. I mean you feel you're in the crosshairs, well everybody who has crossed in one way or another is absolutely in the crosshairs. That's why they're called crosshairs I guess in many respects. So yes of course but in the case of my security clearance it always lapses after a certain period of time after you leave public office, and after you've had your full clearance done. And I'd never renewed it, so for me it was something of as I said a performative symbolic gesture. You know it gets attention of everybody else, but it wasn't really materially consequential but it has been for you know a number of other people.
MF: I mean you know the big story this week obviously are the markets. Every week we're kind of asking ourselves the same questions, you know: is he reliable, is there a plan, can you tell the difference between friend and foe?
FH: In terms of friend and foe, it's not about America or the United States. It's about Trump himself and Trump has friends who are loyal to him. He has friends who are people who he's worked with for a long time or people that he admires. He often styles all kinds of people like Vladimir Putin and many other world leaders friends because he sees them as peers. And although the people that he admires you know for the things that they've done or the status they have in the world but in terms of allies, partners in the conventional geopolitical sense. No there's no difference between friend or foe. They're all adversaries and they're all basically interlocutors who have to be shown their place. So no I mean there is no distinguishing feature between the traditional allies and friends of the United States and its enemies when it comes to many of the things that Trump is doing. So it's not that he can't tell the difference, he's just not interested in telling the difference. Because it's all about him, well it's about him and he can tell the difference between his own friends and those people who are not his friends.
MF: Getting back to how you started the discussion: it's not about America, it's not about US national interest. So we have to just accept this right from the beginning and then you have to assess things in a very different way. When you look at the way that he's handled the markets and the tariffs in the last week, are there parallels to the way that he handled foreign policies when you were working for him?
FH: Yes I mean he likes to come out swinging many times, but if he gets some kind of really significant push-back he often then tacks onto a different course. We saw that over and over again in the first term, and we're really seeing it very vividly everyone's seeing it right now. What's interesting of course is based on what had happened previously. All kinds of people including the markets and American billionaires and other investors basically came to the conclusion that Trump's bark was a lot worse than his bite. They weren't really properly analysing what had happened in the first term, where he was much more constrained. Now he's absolutely unconstrained and the stock market which was seen to be a reliable predictor of the kind of actions he would take because he was always emphasising the importance of the increase in stock prices. And the thought was that if it plunged, certainly took the kind of nose dive that it did immediately after tariffs, that he would immediately change course. Well it turns out that this time you know he was so determined to press ahead, the stock market was not an indicator. But turned out the bond market became an indicator, because suddenly everybody around him was warning of his – to use you know kind of British comparison inevitable this trust moment where all faith in the British economy disappeared because of basically so many switches and twists and turns and uncertainty and frankly you know – assessed ineptitude in the handling of the economy, so that feeling that trust is seeping away from America, that trust is bleeding out which is the kind of what the bond markets indicate. That's pretty scary isn't it? I mean if you're someone who's worked in the administration you live in Washington DC you know you've lived in this country for decades to watch that happening is a scary moment well it's pretty sobering. Look I mean I think anybody who hadn't really been paying attention the first time around may be more scared because they don't know what's happening. But if you've been well prepared and you've analysed the situation it's more of course this is of great concern and how are we going to deal with it but you know you get scared and frightened when you haven't properly assessed what's happening now there are some things that I personally hadn't anticipated. I hadn't anticipated the emergence of Elon Musk with a literal chainsaw to attack the federal government, and many you know distinguished institutions. I'd expected that Trump would go after higher education because that was already a kind of a pattern that had been set. Any independent entity he would go after in some way, but I didn't expect that they would go to the extent of literally trying to kind of cut off all of the sources of US wealth and prosperity. Because I thought someone somewhere, including the people who've joined forces with him: the various billionaires who you know purportedly made their billions by being very savvy investors and assessor of the US economy might be able to exert some influence. But knowing what I know from the first term I know it's extraordinarily hard to exert influence. There's only a handful of people I think were really very effective and the particular group of people around him seemed to be much less effective than those previously who had some success because when you worked for him in the first term, they were real experts the so-called you know designated adults in the room you know who were the guard rails. All the people who've been appointed now seem to be there because either they're mates or they're slavishly loyal to him or they've also got the same worldview. Frankly I would actually single out prior to all of this some of the people who worked on the economic side of things which is why I think people didn't assess things accurately. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in the first administration, the trade representative Bob Lighthizer, you've mentioned Gary Cohn and all of the team around them they were really consumate professionals. They understood what Trump was trying to do but they also were able to shape what he did. In part I think you know somebody like Secretary Mnuchin you know he was very distinguished at Goldman Sachs he treated Trump like a high networth individual troublesome client. Yeah and he was extraordinarily smooth I witnessed it many times in the way that he managed him. You know Gary Cohn and others I mean these are really unsung heroes in many respects at the first time around. They saved this kind of meltdown of the global economy. Now they've gone, we don't hear much from them. Why don't they say anything, well I think probably because they're either trying I suppose in the case of Robert Lighthizer still to have some kind of influence because people in his team, his previous team, are in this new administration or they also don't want to draw attention to themselves. Maybe they're working you know, behind the scenes somewhere, to basically also get in the crosshairs because anybody who criticises Trump has to be removed, has to be dominated, has to be humiliated, has to be pushed away, or in some extreme circumstances persecuted.
MF: You know Russia really well. What you've just described, what you and your you know fellow members of the administration, the first administration, are experiencing sounds a little bit like the kind of stuff that Putin is up to, without pushing people out of windows or making them fall into gaps on the tube.
FH: We are definitely on a path towards full-on state repression there's no question about it. I think of course I've thought this for an extraordinarily long time. This was why I was so outspoken before the election, including in conversations with you, and why so many other people were as well. I mean there are many academics across the United States, who have pointed out about the slippery slope to authoritarianism and autocracy that we're headed towards, making comparisons with other illiberal systems like Hungary and Turkey for example. There's a whole host of articles being rewritten now about competitive authoritarianism but there's also a heck of a lot of people in this country who've experienced that directly including you know naturalised citizens, green card holders, who are now finding themselves also being persecuted. And many people who've sought refuge in the United States who now find themselves uh being caught up in drag nets in immigration and you know summarily dispatched to El Salvador and all kinds of jails or frankly deported. So look there are a lot of people who can see what's happening here and in terms of just basic history you yourself you know have origins in Germany and many people are making you know the comparisons with what happened in the 1930s and that slide away from what had been a pretty vibrant you know society where people thought this can't happen here. Even the Chinese have started talking about a cultural revolution that's happening in the United States not dissimilar from 1968 and the purges that the Chinese themselves undertook you know in that kind of maoist excess. So look everybody is seeing what's happening here it's just Americans themselves I think can't quite believe it.
MF: Is there anything left to America's moral high ground?
FH: There's a lot left but it's really a kind of a question about how people comport themselves, whether they have the courage you know to keep taking a stand. I would say courage is contagious not just fear and it really requires some collective action. I'm very worried about the steps that some law firms have taken because that's really going to deprive many of the people who really require some pro bono support from perhaps getting it. These are the law firms who won't be representing clients because they're afraid that if they do that they're going to get clobbered by the Trump administration and there are many law firms that actually did step up when they thought it was safer to do so. Look it also depends on how all these billionaires who've decided to support Trump you know decide where their bottom line is. Yeah many of them are acting in their own self-interest and not in the interest of the United States. I have to really question how much they're being patriotic towards the United States. People are always invoking the name of the American people wellbthis government is not representative of the entirety of the American people. Most governments aren't but they're supposed to be representing America at large and that's clearly not the case. And you're really going to have to have collective action of others to take a stand to push back against this. Frankly it's the same for foreign countries that are basically interacting with the United States.
We've seen Canada be very firm for example and the so-called allies and friends you know have to then act like friends if this was another country where people were concerned about. If this was Germany, if this was France, if this was Italy places where there has been concern the United States would have spoken out in the past. It's time I think for that kind of speaking out and and you're basically saying what is happening here but I guess what you're saying is that we really need to look under the slab at what's happening to government, to institutions, to independent minds in the United States right now. Because this is also a revolution and what's at stake this time is the future of the republic.
Yes look it's a revolution, it's a coup , you can call it what you want. It's pretty obvious that this is a hostile takeover using you know the electoral system of the US government which has happened in so many different countries. I mean many countries that you know we would have once said were you know bastions of you know economic development or you know kind of political certitude in in all kinds of historic and other geographical settings have gone down this path the whole idea of the United States as a shining city on the hill as a great beacon of democracy and freedom. You know after World War II you know it has tended to get people thinking well that couldn't possibly happen here. Well yes it could and it is happening here and people have to recognise that you left the UK. And you wrote about it in your book There's Nothing for You Here Love what was it what's the title of the book well "There's Nothing for You Here Love" but my father had said this to me in in 1984 said there's nothing for you here pet.
MF: There's nothing for you but but there was something for you here in the US. You made your career here first university, then you brilliantly worked with various administrations, then you wrote this book about it and of course your expertise is kind of comparing you know autocratic regimes around the world especially Russia. How much does it hurt you personally that you made your life here, you know you planted your flag here and yet this stuff is happening to this country.
When you looking at it elsewhere you know it's it's interesting because I don't actually take this personally because you know having gone through things that I did early in my life when you know every industry in my home region closed down I couldn't really take that personally although it personally affected me this is having personal effects but it's just so dispiriting. I think in that kind of larger sense but also alarming in the sense that I want to actually pull an alarm and say to people look what's happening that is happening here because in the first term and and I do actually have some questions. Did we kind of enable in other people some kind of sense of complacency about Trump because many people look back to the first term and think: well it wasn't that bad was it? Well it was actually pretty horrific. Behind the scenes there were all kinds of things happening that wasn't normal. In an American sense give me a good example there is the whole issue and you know foreign policy as well where all kinds of strange you know right-wing influencers were involved in setting foreign policy. Now all kinds of influential people from all kinds of persuasions get involved with fringe views in any government. We see that you know in the UK and and any other setting that we want to pick. People always have advisers and friends who give them advice but it basically resulted in a whole host of chaos and all kinds of chaotic actions then as well but they were concealed behind a kind of facade of normalcy. You have all the stories of Gary Cohn and others you know making interventions literally taking things off the resolute desk you know so that Trump wouldn't act on them. I mean people have now come out and talked about all of this but the point is that this wasn't well known to the American public at large. I and many others went across the country trying to talk to people but ultimately what people saw often is what they want to see was you know somebody who was blunt and plain spoken in the case of Trump. He's charismatic, he's funny, he makes people feel good about themselves and they came to the conclusion that things weren't that bad because they didn't see what was going on behind the curtain. What was it like behind the curtain and what was he like as a boss to you? well I had very limited interactions with him it was more in group settings, because he didn't take me very seriously. I mean later on he describes me as a deep state stiff with a nice accent. I get this Russia bitch moniker is who works on Russia. I presume that they were kind of referring to me so it just shows that they weren't taking me at all seriously. They didn't really care about it but I saw him treating everybody else like that as well apart from the super loyalists who were very close to him. Rex Tillerson former CEO of Exxon Mobile one of the greatest and most important companies globally not just the United States Secretary of State. Dismissed as Secretary of State just as kind of somebody who's part of the staff. He wasn't very nice about him. After he was terrible about him. You know you just name the number of people who pass through basically Trump's entourage as he would think about it but as his staff and his administration and the way that they've been treated and continue to be treated. The things that he said about people including to foreign leaders i mean the most things that were um I think most um again I'm I'm rarely shocked and surprised these days but that I at the time I found shocking was how easily he would dismiss people and how he would talk about them, the tone he would use, the descriptive factors about them in front of, behind the backs and in front of people like Vladimir Putin. You know he would say all the things that he says publicly to foreign leaders about fellow Americans and no matter you know what you think about the the politics the partisan politics you could expect the president of the United States to protect Americans not just those who he thinks is loyal to him or who have flattered him.
So again looking at the events this week what do you think he was really up to with these tariffs? I mean was this about you know flexing his muscles? Was it a kind of soprano style of politics? What was it?
I mean no one can make sense of the calculations of these tariffs well it's his calculation so you have to be you know him to figure out what the calculation was i mean I think it's fairly straightforward honestly i mean he's said since the 1980s that he believes that tariffs are the solution he still believes that. I mean look we all know people who will believe something irrespective of some of the evidence they keep on going until you know but he blinked because because of the bond markets because in the end I mean he started what remember though what he said it's wasn't about him and a mistake he said because people were getting yippy or they were basically you know getting panicked by it and so he's pulling back. Probably to you know pushing pause until he persuades people to go forward again. And he's certainly not unrestrained himself when it comes to China. One extraordinary thing is the kind of you know attentional economy that he has pumped up. He loves ratings. He's obsessed with ratings. He wants to get the limelight all the time and you know whether it's the markets or the Middle East or Russia where's the followup you know what what has he actually achieved in the first three months of office you know with for all the bonanza and all the fireworks that came the whole world is obsessed with him and that and it makes for great TV. Remember what he said in the oval office, well that's going to make for great TV isn't it. And then he give a little laugh he wants to be the most important person in the world and if one thing doesn't get attention, he moves on to the next thing. There are some things that he fundamentally wants and that he holds as kind of deep-seated convictions. Tariffs is one of them he holds honestly as well. Look we've got to you now. Give some credit where it's due, he does want to generally stop the war between Russia and Ukraine. I mean his analysis of it may be off but he wants to see the fight does stop. He wants the Nobel Peace Prize.
That's you know kind of as a consequence of all the things that he wants to do. He wants to actually you know head off Iran getting a nuclear weapon. He's talking about sitting down with Iran again, same with North Korea he actually does want to genuinely make the world safe against nuclear weapons. It is a good thing it's just the whole way that he's going about everything. In fact a trade war could inadvertently lead you know to all kinds of other consequences as you said at the very beginning to some kind of hot version of a war. Do you think that's possible with China? Well look China is supporting Russia behind the scenes in its war in Ukraine and Russia sees or saw the war in Ukraine as a war against the United States which Trump has recognised. And he's trying to pull the United States support away from Ukraine. But it's still a war against Ukraine and in fact it's a war against Europe because for Russia it's a war for the future of Europe and Russia's place in Europe at the expense of other European countries. Most especially against Ukraine but also all of its neighbours the Baltic states Belarus which has sort of disappeared into the Russian orbit.
Poland Finland all of these countries see that and as the US pulls away that leaves Europe very uncomfortably juxtaposed against Russia China North Korea and Iran and here is Trump trying to make his own deals with all of these completely and utterly leaving the field that the United States entered 80 years ago. We're going to be celebrating VE day shortly in May. That was the United States coming in as the guarantor of security in Europe and now the United States looks more like the harbinger of insecurity in Europe rather than the guarantor of security.
I mean Trump is basically pulling out of Europe in the way that Biden pulled out of Afghanistan. I mean you think about it in that way. I mean this is a total reversal of an historic entry of the United States into Europe and it's the lifetime of Trump the man is almost 80 so his whole lifetime, his prosperity. his success has been based on the transatlantic relationship and the strength of that and in a way he's basically undermining his very self. Why has he got it in for Europe so much. Do you think he thinks that Europeans are vassals, parasites um you know basically ripping the United States off. He shouldn't have been relying on the United States to basically underpin its security, he's not wrong. His grandfather was from Germany, his mother came from Scotland. I mean well again so it's not personal in that regard he sees this again as basically another rupture that he thinks is obviously not to the United States' benefit. Which is when security and economics part company again in the 1980s. Which is was the formulating period for the whole way that he thinks about things, which is when you get the rise of Japan a formerly occupied country by America after World War II and the rise of Europe. I mean it takes a little bit of time but that's when the EU starts to come into its own and that's when other economies become less dependent on the United States.
And they you know start producing their own products and no one's running around with a Coca-Cola bottle in every hand, a Ford truck in every driveway, and you know the United States is having to compete more. And that's what he thinks is the big problem. He understands that China you know doesn't owe the United States anything but he does believe that Japan and Europe owe the United States everything in terms of their prosperity. The reason why he and many others are freaked out by China is that China is beating America on one level at its own game correct. And I mean it's basically China despite still being a communist country at least nominally is beating the United States at the game of capitalism but the irony in all this again just briefly getting back to tariffs and trade I mean do they really, does JD Vance and does Donald Trump, do they really want Americans in you know Wisconsin or Michigan to make Nike trainers you know and do the basic stuff that not even the Chinese are doing anymore? They've outsourced that to the Cambodians and the Asians. Well if you judge what JD Vance and others have said yes I suppose that they certainly do want that to happen. These are probably jobs for Americans, well they're jobs. I think that's kind of what they would argue and look coming from Northern England you know most of the jobs now that used to be in coal mines and steel, works in Amazon you know super warehouses. They're in Nissan factories you know there's a good job you know in in a factory but they're not the jobs that they used to be. My dad ended up being a hospital porter he didn't like that job especially and he's sort of hunky back but it was a job and that was it. My dad wanted to work and you know if people want to work they want a job. However it is unlikely that Americans from Wisconsin and Michigan are going to move to you know Arizona or California to work in fields and you know in crops or in meat packing plants for example. So there's you know a flaw in some of this thinking here that many of the jobs that immigrants you know kind of fill now in the United States will be taken over by Americans because the populations in different places because of the larger you know patterns of the economy now they do want to bring back car manufacturing back to Michigan and elsewhere. But we're more likely to see such a disruption of the auto manufacturing sector globally that it's unlikely again that that that will be a boom in the United States. It's all of these externalities all of this the fact that the world is a lot more complicated place even than it was in the 1980s. The rise of you know the digital sector for example I mean people are already saying the knowledge economy you know all of us who invested in you know degrees is the next step in my case out of the minds you know they encourage education to be part of the knowledge economy that's all going to change as well. So we're in a period of enormous change in the economic structures in the world of technology you know kind of great breakthroughs and the United States was at the forefront of all of this. And this is why I think many of the things that they're doing with tariffs and other attacks on higher education for example they're really attacking the roots of research and development in the United States. People don't see the United States has been at the forefront not just of technological breakthroughs in Silicon Valley. I mean Elon Musk is you know justifiably lauded for these great achievements he's had in technology but also in life sciences. Yeah vaccine production breakthroughs in cancer and Alzheimer's all that is being challenged by well yes exactly getting rid of experts, 9 million grants that are under question at Harvard they're all in the life sciences. They're not to the humanities they're not to people studying English you know for example when do people wake up to the fact that this is a disaster for this country they don't wake up to the fact usually until it actually affects them directly right which of course we've seen in every other setting as well. And by that time it's too late. So I mean I think you know the the message that I and other people have been trying to serve for some time is look, look at the facts, look at what's happening, look at previous history. You know that you have to be pushed back collectively just on Russia I mean what has he actually achieved in terms of Russia because there's no ceasefire the Russians are you know launching their spring offensive as we speak. You know Putin is kind of firmly in power, okay the economy is in a bit of trouble but it's a war economy. Now Ukraine is struggling they're constantly hanging under this cloud what are the Americans going to do next what is all that bluster about Russia has achieved. Well I think in the way that you're asking the question bluster about Russia and all about Russia. It is all about Russia. Trump wants to reset the Russia–US relationship. It's what he wanted to do the first term because he admires Vladimir Putin as but he also again go back to the 1980s. His visit to Moscow he thinks that Russia and the Soviet Union by the way are just the same thing. Just to be very clear so the fact that Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Kazakhstan you know you name it were all part of the Soviet Union. It's irrelevant to Trump. When he talks about Russian deaths in World War II these are Soviet deaths. And Ukraine at that point lost about 20% maybe even 25% of its population it was the killing fields of World War II. But for Trump it's all about Russia. It's the Soviet Union that's the superpower. His first visit to Moscow in that period he was wined and dined. He immediately started writing and and being interviewed about the trajectory of US-Soviet, US-Russian relations, talking about the importance of setting that relationship on a different path. Then you know for all kinds of deals, and you know economic cooperation and security cooperation, he's still on that tack. That's what he wants to go back to the unfulfilled promise of the golden period of his youth, when he was in his 40s and rising up you know to kind of the top as a celebrity, world figure and business person. Ukraine is in the way, it's completely in the way and he's very because Russia doesn't want Ukraine to be in I mean they don't want Ukraine he doesn't and he doesn't care and and he doesn't want the war to be there he said it wouldn't have happened if he was in place he wants it out of the way. It's not his war right from the beginning he said that to other people he wants to just get down like you and I sitting here and talk to Vladimir Putin and make the world a safer place, deals with nuclear weapons and they have a you know they go back to Reagan and Gorbachev and the nuclear treaties which you know is not a bad thing. But it's politics, big men sitting across the table discussing correct, and it's discounting all of the other problems that are out there. And it's almost as if it's in a vacuum. It's like we've all been stuck in aspic you know like one of those jellied you know horrible things that you know back in our youth we might have got served for tea by our granny's you know one of these jelly things with a piece of meat in the middle of it that's kind of we've been stuck in that kind of 1980s aspect you know for for Trump's point of view but when but look I I really think it comes down to the fact that he absolutely and utterly wants as a life goal to reset the US-Russia relationship and see it through. And he is also of the view that if everybody makes money out of this, everybody gets rich what's you know to complain about? So that is really bad news for Ukraine isn't it? It's terrible news for Ukraine, it's terrible news for Europe and it's terrible news actually for anybody watching this and wondering what that is going to have in terms of reverberations elsewhere. There's all that sense of aggrandisement you know I never pegged him for being an imperialist the first time around. But I hadn't made the logical conclusion you know from if you develop real estate that you know you then want to go further. And that's Greenland, that's Canada, that's Panama.
MF: I mean you know probably I was going to ask you about that this is really this is new isn't it but is this I mean certainly new in my mind because I hadn't noticed it before does he think in these hemispheric kind of neighbourhood terms?
FH: You know my global neighbourhood is the Americas just like you know it was Queens and Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. This is now my neighbourhood and therefore I want Greenland because it's good for security. I want the Panama Canal, I want Canada and Mexico can be a sort of you know factory state for us. Is that what it is? I think it really you know that's a pretty good assessment and look Trump is always pretty straightforward in the way he describes he's very public. I mean I think you can take him at his word on this. Vladimir Putin certainly taking him at his word. Vladimir Putin has recently made a speech and he was talking about the Arctic and he starts talking about the validity of US claims. Yeah there is no validity to US claims. It's just that historically the US has made claims against both Canada and Greenland and also Iceland. Frankly other territories as well, so Putin's egging him on at this point because for Putin that's fantastic. That means Putin can dominate not just Ukraine and the whole former Soviet block but Europe as well. Because Russia will be the big kid on the block, especially if Putin and Trump's vision of a Europe without the EU or a Europe with a very diluted NATO if it's still there. I mean neither Trump nor Putin are particularly keen on NATO for a whole variety of different but sometimes similar kinds of reasons you know Europe is really in the crosshairs here too.
MF: You said earlier that he doesn't like wars, he doesn't like to see beautiful young men die and all that stuff that he's been going on about but is there a danger, do you think there is a danger that all these things could actually lead to a proper shooting war either because of some mishap and hurt pride issue with the Russians or maybe with the Chinese? Often trade wars morph into real wars. How and what kind of danger are that this will actually become?
FH: We're already in a situation where you could describe this as World War III structurally. I mean everybody thinks about nuclear war, nuclear Armageddon. And Trump told Zelensky, look you're gambling with World War III here. Because again he wants Zelensky to just put up, shut up and go away, so we can get back to negotiating with Putin. We've got a hot war in Europe at this very moment that's had around a million casualties in terms of people either killed or severely wounded, millions of refugees and all kinds of knock-on effects. That's very similar to what happened in World War I and World War II. Obviously the scale is different but there were system changing conflicts and there were also multi vector loads of different countries involved in that. And again we've got China, North Korea and Iran all supporting Russia, some more material ways than others obviously. And a whole host of other countries are happily fueling this war. India's been selling you know arms to the Russians. Iran's been building drone factories. North Korea's been sending troops and now we hear that some Chinese troops a limited number. So the Chinese government probably didn't necessarily send them there but they got recruited and they haven't gone back. But then again lots of people are going to fight you know foreign legion-like in Russia itself. I mean that's what happened in the Spanish Civil War. It's happened in all kinds of wars but then we've got conflicts all the way around the world. We've got conflicts in the Middle East, we've got conflicts in Africa, we've got all kinds of upheavals in which enormous numbers of people are dying and nothing is being done. So the United States is also taking itself out of the game.
MF: So we're not going to stop any of these conflicts either including frankly in the Middle East trying to wrap it all up and there's an awful lot to wrap up here. I mean with everything that he's doing both on the global stage and at home do you think that the republic is in danger of disappearing genuinely? Or that even if someone else becomes president, a Democrat, I don't know or a nice Republican who's not like Trump, I mean a Republican who doesn't have the same ideals that America can survive the way that we used to know it or is it is it finished?
FH: Well America's never finished and I mean nowhere's ever finished. I mean no state collapses completely and disappears. We could say oh well there's been the partition of this, that and the other, but there's always some something's still there: the memory of it or some kind of historic residue that people will say has had impacts on other things. But look, I think America has been grievously wounded and has been heading in this path for a very long time to be honest. It's the fetishisation of the presidency. For one thing, the president was never supposed to be above everything and you know steadily through successive presidents frankly including some of the presidents that I've worked for previously: George W. Bush absolutely, Obama as well. Frankly because they all started doing everything by executive order and trying to bypass Congress because it was deeply frustrating. They've all contributed to the kind of path we're on now where Trump believes that the presidency is basically the only institution that counts. And you know as we approach the 250th anniversary of America, and the casting off of Britain and King George and the sort of the tyranny of the empire. America's looking remarkably like you know kind of a Great Britain of 250 years ago, complete with a king which Trump wants to be. How ironic that in the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution against the British monarchy, we've got someone in the White House who's behaving very much like a wannabe monarch.
MF: Fiona Hill fascinating thank you very much indeed. That's it with Fiona Hill from this special edition of The Fourcast from Washington D.C.
