Radar Online
Donald Trump's work relationship with Vladimir Putin may not have been as great as originally believed, because former presidential advisor Fiona Hill recently revealed the Russian leader was constantly “frustrated” with the former President over his lack of knowledge, Radar has learned.
Hill, who previously worked as a top Russia advisor on the National Security Council during the Trump Administration, revealed this week that Putin was “frustrated” with Trump's lack of knowledge and with always having to “keep explaining things” to his U.S. counterpart.
She also claimed the Russian president waited until Joe Biden was in the White House before invading Ukraine because President Biden would be “easier” to deal and negotiate with.
“He thought that somebody like Biden — who's a transatlanticist, who knows all about NATO, who actually knows where Ukraine is, and actually knows something about the history, and is very steeped in international affairs — would be the right person to engage with,” Hill told her audience while speaking at a Chicago Council on Global Affairs event on Tuesday.
“You could see that he got frustrated many times with President Trump because he had to keep explaining things, and Putin doesn't like to do that,” Hill continued.
“Even though [Putin] loves to be able to spin his own version of events, he wants to have predictability in the person that he's engaging with,” she added.
But Putin's lack of confidence in Trump and his ability to properly grasp and understand global affairs is not the first time someone close to the former president has doubted his intelligence.
Former national security advisor John Bolton – who, like Hill, worked under Trump – is on record claiming the 45th president once asked him whether or not Finland was considered part of Russia.
Additionally, according to Hill's 2021 book There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century, General John Kelley – who worked as former-President Trump's White House chief of staff – allegedly once said Trump “doesn't know any history at all, even some of the basics on the US.”
“Whenever he got to meetings and the conversation started, it seemed like the first time he was hearing things from world leaders,” Hill also wrote in her book before revealing how Trump's lack of knowledge regarding global affairs was a “major liability” for both the United States and its national security.
