Fiona Hill

He's probably somebody who wants to consume raw intelligence.

He doesn't probably want to hear anybody else's analysis.

He's thrived in the past of picking things up from people.

I've taken part in all of these meetings with him, gone fireworks, because he's just collecting.

He's collecting information.

He's sussing people out.

He wants to know the questions they ask.

He learns something about the questions that people ask, the way that they ask them.

So he's kind of soliciting information himself.

And if he's cut off from that information because of circumstances...

then, you know, how is he formulating things in his head?

And again, getting into, you can't get into his head, but you can understand the context in which he's operating.

And that's where you worry, because he clearly made this decision to invade Ukraine behind the back of most of his security establishment.

Oh, I think it's pretty apparent.

What would the security establishment... Well, that would be the larger, you know, thinking of the funneling in information from the presidential administration, from the National Security Council.

It looks like, you know, he made that decision with a handful of people.

And then, you know, having worked in these kinds of environments, and it's not that dissimilar, you filter information up.

So think about, you know, you and I are talking for hours here.

But if you were my, you know, basically, you know, senior official and I'm your briefer, I might only get 20 minutes with you.

And you might be just like, you know, looking at your watch the whole time and thinking, hang on a second, I've got to go and I've got this meeting and I've got that meeting.