Fiona Hill on Trump, Putin and populism

Dialogues with Richard Reeves

“People should not underestimate Donald Trump’s abilities as a retail politician", says my guest today, fellow Brit-American Fiona Hill. "He knows how to connect with people, he knows how to get people riled up, he knows how to pit people against each other so that they can’t push back against what he’s doing”. Fiona is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and former deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2019. In November 2019, she testified in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. In very personal terms, we discuss the class system and social mobility in the UK, and her childhood in the North East of England, which lost its economic heart as coal mining collapsed; as well as her experience in the Soviet Union and Russia, American academia, and the White House. Fiona compares and contrasts the authoritarian style of Trump and Putin (with some discussion of Erdogan too); the need for more aggressive social and economic policy for places devastated by the shift away from industry; and the real and present danger posed to so many nations by political populism. We conclude, as her book does, with a discussion of what we can do as individuals and our own communities to build a stronger infrastructure of opportunity.

Fiona Hill

Fiona Hill is a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. She is a foreign policy expert on Russian and European affairs, and has served under three presidents: Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush. Hill is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has held numerous positions directing research at Harvard University, where she obtained her PhD in History.

More Hill

• Hill’s book, There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century, is an exceptionally honest tale of dwindling opportunity in the UK and the US.
• You can read more of her work at Brookings, the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and Politico
• Her testimony at Trump’s first impeachment trial is also worth watching (starting at 3:08:43)

Also Mentioned

• I mentioned Joseph Fishkin’s book, Bottlenecks: A New Theory of Equal Opportunity, which if you haven’t read by now, you really should!
• Fiona mentioned The Fifth Risk, written by Michael Lewis and Angrynomics co-authored by Mark Blythe.
• I quoted G.A. Cohen, “social justice isn't just found in structures and institutions, it's found in the thick of everyday life,” in his book If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich?
• Fiona also mentioned the group Wider Circle and Dress for Success

The Dialogues Team

Creator: Richard Reeves

Research: Ashleigh Maciolek

Artwork: George Vaughan Thomas

Tech Support: Cameron Hauver-Reeves

Music: "Remember" by Bencoolen (thanks for the permission, guys!)