Fiona Hill says Trump's presidency was a 'mistake,' warning populist politicians like him 'short-circuit our democracy'

• Fiona Hill told GMA it was a "mistake" to have Trump in the White House.
• Hill compared Trump's brand of populist politics to that of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• "Unfortunately, we saw with President Trump that his whole focus was on himself," Hill said.

Fiona Hill in an appearance on "Good Morning America" on Monday told George Stephanopoulos that having Donald Trump as president was a "mistake" and detrimental to American democracy.

Hill, who served as Trump's top Russia advisor on the National Security Council, said the warning she's sought to make in her forthcoming book is that populist politicians like Trump "rarely do anything to fix the situation for everybody ... and the risk of populist politics is that it short-circuits our democracy, because it's one leader saying: 'I'm the only person who matters in this system.'" The book, "There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century," is set to be released on Tuesday.

Along these lines, Stephanopoulos asked if it was a mistake to work for Trump - a twice-impeached president who left the White House in disgrace following what Hill has described as a "self-coup" at the US Capitol on January 6.

"I saw myself as serving the country," Hill said of her time in the Trump administration, adding, "I think it was a mistake to have President Trump as the president, unfortunately."

-Good Morning America (@GMA) October 4, 2021

Hill, who played a pivotal role in Trump's first impeachment over his dealings with Ukraine, told Stephanopoulos that the former president's brand of populist politics is cut from the same cloth as Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Trump basically said, 'I'm going to fix everything, I'm going to make America great again.' Vladimir Putin said exactly the same thing in Russia at the end of the 1990s when he came in," Hill said. "And the big risk that we have - when you have a populist leader like this - is that really they're just mobilizing the base of voters for their own purposes."

"Unfortunately, we saw with President Trump that his whole focus was on himself," Hill added, going on to say that he "clearly intends to run" in 2024. Trump has not officially declared his candidacy, but has repeatedly hinted that he plans to run again.