Fiona Hill

This is in 2000.

And so for the last 25 years, I've been one way or another trying to figure out what makes Vladimir Putin tick.

And it was because of that.

And, you know, various other forays being loaned out by Brookings to National Intelligence Council, writing a book about Putin to try to figure out who is this guy?

You know, why is he still here?

Why is he likely to be here to infinity and beyond?

That I ended up getting asked to join the Trump administration.

It was literally through connections that I'd made being loaned out to the government in a much earlier period in the 2000s at the end of Bush and leading into Obama and from people who'd read the book.

That's as fast as I could do it for you now.

Well, actually, the other little boy next to me put the fire out with his bare hands as I was going, what's happened?

Is my hair on fire?

So, I mean, it's kind of one of those stories as you need friends looking out for you.

That guy who did that, Stuart Quamby, was most recently a steward on British Airways.

You can just, you know, kind of be sure that he'd look out for you in an emergency.

Well, that's definitely a hair on fire moment.

Related questions.

You know, it's actually I mean, there was a number of people that I knew that were still, you know, in the government, professional, you know, analyst experts, some people who'd gone in to the National Security Council as well.

none of whom were partisan or political.

That's sort of what I was approached, first of all, which was by Katie McFarland, and, you know, weirdly, General Flynn, and also General Kellogg.

I'd worked with him in the previous, you know, iterations of General Flynn.