Trump Adviser Considered Faking ‘Heart Attack’ to Get him to Stop Siding With Putin Over U.S. Intelligence: Book
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A new book claims a top adviser to then-President Donald Trump considered faking a heart attack to get him to stop siding with Vladimir Putin over the FBI in Europe in 2018.
In The Big Lie: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics After 2020, Politico’s Jonathan Lemire recounts a bizarre tale.
Mike Allen of Axios shared a snippet from the book in which Lemire claims Trump’s Russia adviser Fiona Hill almost took an extreme measure to quiet him during a speech in Helsinki, Finland:
Fiona Hill, the senior Russia expert on the National Security Council, who was sitting one row in front of me, later told me that she considered doing something, anything — including faking a heart attack — to disrupt the proceedings and get Trump to stop talking.
For context, Trump stated he had no reason to believe Russia was interfering in U.S. elections after a meeting with Putin.
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies had determined Russia was behind broad efforts to influence outcomes at the ballot box in 2016.
After visiting with Putin in private, Trump was asked about Russian election meddling.
In accepting Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin’s denial of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections, Pres.Trump squared off with his own country’s intelligence community after the Helsinki summit.@MajorCBS has the details https://t.co/cKew9AGCKN pic.twitter.com/QPLaRAm91B
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) July 16, 2018
“President Putin says it’s not Russia,” Trump responded. “I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
The former president’s comments sparked an immediate backlash at home.
“We must continue to work with our allies to counter Russia’s influence around the world,” said Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY).
“America wants a good relationship with the Russian people but Vladimir Putin and his thugs are responsible for Soviet-style aggression,” Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) said. “When the president plays these moral equivalence games, he gives Putin a propaganda win he desperately needs.”
