Fiona Hill says Trump 'could win again' in 2024 and continues to stage a 'slow-moving coup' after January 6
- Fiona Hill said in a new interview with The Hill that Trump could win in 2024 if he decides to run.
- Hill also claimed that Trump continues to stage a "slow-moving coup."
Fiona Hill, who served as former President Donald Trump's top Russia expert, said in a new interview published Wednesday that her ex-boss could win the White House in 2024 if he decides to run again.
"He could win again. And it will be - if he does, it will be on the back of a big lie and on an awful lot of efforts to suppress the vote and the turnout," Hill told the The Hill.
The former National Security Council advisor also warned that if Trump loses, he'll likely challenge the election results again, as he did after the 2020 presidential race with no success.
"Just one constitutional crisis after another," Hill said. "We're in for a wild ride. We're already in it."
These comments come after several months of Trump teasing another bid for the presidency. He has not yet made a formal campaign announcement, though. Other former Trump officials, such as ex-White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, have claimed that Trump will run in 2024. A new Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday found that 78% of Republicans say they want Trump to run again.
Trump continues to lie that he won the 2020 election and the victory was "stolen" from him because of widespread voter fraud, a claim that state and federal officials have repeatedly disproven. Some far-right figures have also floated conspiracy theories that Trump could be reinstated as president while President Joe Biden holds the office, which is not legally possible.
Since leaving the White House, Trump remains an influential leader in the Republican party, regularly weighing in on national politics and endorsing GOP candidates for the 2022 midterm elections.
Hill spoke about Trump's lasting power to The Hill, claiming that he is staging a "slow-moving coup."
"The slow-moving coup, you know, didn't really culminate in Jan. 6," Hill told The Hill, referring to when Trump supporters violently broke into the US Capitol on January 6 while Congress was meeting to certify Biden's victory.
"I just see this as an episode in one long continuum," Hill added. "It's just a different kind of coup now because he's technically out of office but, in his view, he's not out of power."
Hill, who was a key witness during the House impeachment inquiry into Trump's dealings with Ukraine, was heavily critical of the former president in her new book, "There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century."
She characterized Trump as a major threat to democracy in the US, often drawing parallels between the former president and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader, widely regarded as an authoritarian and enemy to democracy, has taken extraordinary steps to consolidate power in his country. This includes signing a law earlier this year that would allow him to stay in office for another 15 years, after already ruling over Russia for the past two decades.
"Trump's interpretation of executive power and his attempt to usurp the presidency may have paved the way for another, less personally insecure and more capable populist president - someone who actually did his or her homework and was skilled in project management - to pull a Putin in America," said Hill, who also wrote a biography on Putin.
Hill said that even though Trump's "self-coup" on January 6 failed, he still "successfully usurped the Republican party."
"In the aftermath of Trump's disastrous reign, it was tempting to breathe a sigh of relief. But that would have been premature, because there was no indication that his dynasty would fade away," Hill wrote.
A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.