Former Trump Adviser Recounts 'Bizarre' Dinner With Odd-Smelling Vladimir Putin

A former Trump advisor and U.S. National Security Officer recalled a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin during an interview with BBC, remembering his smell and the way that he commanded his presence in the room.

Fiona Hill, a former advisor for both the National Intelligence Council and for Donald Trump during his presidency, recalled her first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including the odd odor that he exuded when she met him that dinner, according to the New York Post.

“Now, this sounds really bizarre, but I could smell that he was freshly laundered,” she said. “He wasn’t wearing cologne, but it was almost like he had stepped out of some special preparatory bath or something, into the moment.”

She recalled that Putin also reportedly used flashcards with a large font on them, commenting that the Russian dictator “really could have done with glasses” as she says she was able to read out of those cards by herself, Business Insider reported.

“I noticed right away that, like the rest of us, he really could have done with glasses because he had these giant cards. I could read them all, cards telling him who was who and what he should say and things like this,” she said.

Among the other things that Hill remembers during her first meeting with Putin was the way he was dressed and how he was able to command the attention of the room, commenting on how a lot of how he interacted with people felt like a performance to her.

“He was just all in command of himself projecting this image, I thought, ‘Wow, look at this!’” she said. “All of this is staged. Every little element of this is staged. This is a performance.”

“I took in the suits, one of the finely tailored suits, the way that the little vein pulses on the left-hand side of his face,” Hill said.

Hill is best known for working under the Trump administration as an advisor to Russia. In recent years, she has commented on the moves of the country in the global sphere, as well as give an insight as to how former President Trump thought of Putin during their meetings, saying that Trump wants to rule like Putin and do “as he pleases.”