Fiona Hill warns Trump winning reelection would 'mean the total loss of America's leadership position in the world arena'

• Fiona Hill warned that Trump's reelection could do irrevocable damage to US foreign relations.
• "It would mean the total loss of America's leadership position in the world arena," she told NYT Magazine.

Fiona Hill warned that if former President Donald Trump is elected to a second term it would effectively cause the US to lose all credibility on the global stage.

"We've been the gold standard of democratic elections. All of that will be rolled back if Trump returns to power after claiming that the only way he could ever lose is if someone steals it from him," Hill, who served as the top Russia advisor on the National Security Council under the Trump administration, told New York Times Magazine in a new interview.

"It'll be more than diplomatic shock," she added. "I think it would mean the total loss of America's leadership position in the world arena."

Similarly, Trump's former national security advisor John Bolton told the Times that if Trump had been reelected in 2020 it could have caused "damage" to the US "that might not be reparable," adding that the same concerns would apply to the former president winning in 2024. Trump has repeatedly teased a potential 2024 presidential bid.

Hill, who served as a key witness in Trump's first impeachment over his Ukraine dealings, compared Trump to authoritarian leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

"In the course of his presidency, indeed, Trump would come more to resemble Putin in political practice and predilection than he resembled any of his recent American presidential predecessors," Hill said.

Trump wanted the same "arrangements" as Orbán, Hill said, "where he could push the margins and stay in power without any checks and balances."

Orbán, who recently won reelection to a fourth consecutive four-year term, has repeatedly been criticized by democracy watchdogs and the EU for his anti-democratic tendencies as well as human rights abuses. Critics of the Hungarian leader say he's rigged his country's electoral system to ensure the opposition has little chance of winning.

Trump constantly told "world leaders that he deserved a redo of his first two years," Hill said, adding, "He'd say that his first two years had been taken away from him because of the 'Russia hoax.' And he'd say that he wanted more than two terms."

Hill, who also served as the national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia for the National Intelligence Council under former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, also once again excoriated Trump over his dealings with Ukraine. The top Russia expert has contended that Trump's approach to Ukraine helped pave the way for Putin to launch an unprovoked war in late February.

Trump, who's sought to rewrite history on his handling of relations with Moscow and Kyiv, used Ukraine as a "plaything for his own purposes," Hill said.

"Trump had privatized foreign policy for his own purposes," she said, and had the "narrow goal" of remaining in power "irrespective of what other people wanted."

In a statement to the Times regarding the interview with Hill, Trump said, "She doesn't know the first thing she's talking about. If she didn't have the accent she would be nothing."

In an infamous phone call on July 25, 2016, Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to launch an investigation into then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, over baseless allegations of corruption. Trump simultaneously withheld $400 million in vital military aid to Ukraine, which was fighting a war against Kremlin-backed rebels at the time. The assistance was eventually released, but only after Trump learned of a whistleblower complaint over the July 25 phone call.

After Trump provoked a deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, via his lies about the 2020 election, Hill said she "saw the thread" between the Zelenskyy phone call and the fatal events of that day.

"I remembered how, in 2020, Putin had changed Russia's Constitution to allow him to stay in power longer. This was Trump pulling a Putin," Hill said.

Working in the Trump administration was "extraordinarily difficult," Hill said, especially "for those of us who were serving in the administration with the hopes of pushing back against the Russians, to make sure that their intervention in 2016 didn't happen again." The difficulties led "some people" to lose "their sense of self" along the way, she said.