Fiona Hill reveals how Trump dismissed opposite sex aside from ‘ideal’ Ivanka: ‘He looked at women as secretaries’
The former Trump administration official says he respected the Queen more than Theresa May and Ivanka was his ‘ideal woman.’
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Andrew Feinberg
White House Correspondent
Former Trump administration national security official and Russia advisor Fiona Hill says the former president saw women as non-entities in a new interview with The Independent.
Dr Hill, who grew up in the United Kingdom before emigrating to the United States, describes many of the incidents of sexism in her new book There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century.
In particular, she writes about how former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and others referred to her as “the Russia Bitch.”
Read the full interview here
“I mean, there are people like Kellyanne Conway and others who had a big influence on him [Trump], because obviously they ran his campaign and he admired her,” she said.
“But I think for women who he didn't know, women who didn't appear to be loyal, women who didn't come from Fox News or one of the other places that he used as his litmus test for who people were, as far as they were concerned, they were non-entities,” she added. “And in my experience, I mean, he looked at most women as secretaries, members of the staff.”
Elsewhere, she describes how on her first day meeting Mr Trump, she wore sneakers because she forgot her work shoes on the Washington Metro, but Mr Trump barely paid her any attention. When his daughter Ivanka appeared and sat beside her, she saw the sneakers and baulked.
“[She] wafted into the room wearing an elaborately lacy two-piece white outfit and alarmingly high stiletto heels as if she were off to a gala. Ivanka sat down right beside me, immediately taking in my black sneakers, which I had failed to conceal under the chair, and flashing me a look of surprise. I was busted”, Dr Hill writes.
Dr Hill also notes how Mr Trump disparaged women in power like former United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“I mean, he was fairly disparaging of Theresa May after she basically failed to get a resounding majority,” she said.
He similarly criticised Chancellor Merkel, whom he had long disparaged for welcoming refugees from Syria, after he initially praised her.
“When he thought that people were winners, so for example, Chancellor Merkel really dominated the European political scene, but then she, like Theresa May, obviously had to go through various electoral tests, and when their majorities dropped, he would then treat them differently.”
“He basically associated women generally with weakness. He was somewhat repelled by them.”
Conversely, Dr Hill said he seemed to admire Queen Elizabeth II for the regality, as well as CIA Director Gina Haspel, along with Ms Conway.
But in Mr Trump’s eyes, the ideal woman was his daughter Ivanka, Dr. Hill said.
“The high glamor, the fact that his view, everybody admired and adored her. He was always talking about this, so Ivanka Trump was a reflection of self,” she said. “Other women, he was just much less interested in, and certainly didn't think that they had something to tell him.”
“His ideal woman was Ivanka Trump,” Dr Hill said, “because he saw Ivanka Trump as his female alter ego.”
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