A Former Trump Advisor Considered Faking A Heart Attack To Get Him To Stop Praising Putin While Trashing U.S. Intelligence Agencies

We all remember the moment when, in April 2020, Donald Trump suggested that drinking a disinfectant such as bleach might be one way to fight off the COVID-19 virus while Dr. Deborah Birx, the then-newly appointed White House coronavirus response coordinator, looked on and listened in what appeared to be abject horror:

(Though watching it with the theme song from Curb Your Enthusiasm edited in somehow feels more natural.)

But according to a new book, Dr. Birx wasn’t the only member of the Trump administration to have such a visceral “Good god—what have I done?!” moment. As Mediaite reports, the former president’s Russia adviser, Fiona Hill, had a very similar kind of out-of-body experience at the 2018 Helsinki summit when she sat and watched Trump openly stated that he believed Vladimir Putin when he swore he didn’t meddle in the 2016 elections, despite the fact that Trump’s own intelligence officials were telling him differently.

“President Putin says it’s not Russia,” Trump declared. “I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

In The Big Lie: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics After 2020, a new book from Politico’s White House Bureau Chief Jonathan Lemire, the author writes about that moment:

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.

While it would have been a drastic measure, who’s to say Trump would have even noticed — or reacted. Unfortunately, we’ll never know the answer. But it would have made for a great show.

Even as recently as this year, Trump pals like Sean Hannity have desperately given the former president every opportunity to cool it on his pro-Putin rhetoric. And each time, he blows it!

(Via Mediaite)