A new book from veteran journalist Bob Woodward details that former President Donald Trump may have spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin as many as seven times since leaving the White House in 2021, per multiple reports.
The book, “War,” which releases next week, also says that in 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump sent Putin COVID-19 tests — then scarce due to shortages — for his personal use, according to the Washington Post. (Woodward, who began working for the paper in 1971, holds the honorific title of associate editor with the publication, though is not formally employed by the outlet.)
Per the book, Putin urged Trump not to reveal he sent the Russian leader the tests, reportedly telling him: “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me.”
It was previously reported that during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Russia and the U.S. exchanged medical supplies, including ventilators and personal protective equipment. Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, wrote on social media at the time that it was a “gesture of solidarity with New Yorkers who are in a very difficult situation at the moment.”
The book details that earlier this year, Trump ordered an aide to leave his office at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida so he could have a private conversation with the Russian leader. The aide also detailed that they spoke as many as seven times. The book does not detail what they discussed.
Woodward also asked Trump campaign aide Jason Miller if Trump and Putin had spoken since he left office. “Not that I’m aware of,” Miller told Woodward. “I have not heard that they’re talking, so I’d push back on that.”
He also asked Avril Haines, the Director of National Intelligence, about contact between Trump and Putin. She replied: “I would not purport to be aware of all contacts with Putin. I wouldn’t purport to speak to what President Trump may or may not have done.”
In an interview on "The Howard Stern Show" on Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris responded to the reporting, telling the host: "This election is about strength vs. weakness, the weakness of someone who puts himself before the American people. Who does not have the strength to stand for their needs and make sure we're a secure nation."
"People in America were struggling to get tests, and this guy is sending them to Russia, to a murderous dictator for his personal use? That is just the most recent stark example of who Trump is," Harris told Howard Stern. "That he secretly sent COVID test kits for the personal use of Putin, of Russia, an adversary, to the United States when he was talking about Americans should be putting bleach in their blood. Think about what this is."
Trump’s campaign dismissed the reporting as “made up stories” and cited the former president’s lawsuit against the Woodward for releasing audio from their interviews without his consent.
"None of these made up stories by Bob Woodward are true and are the work of a truly demented and deranged man who suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” said Trump campaign communications director Stephen Cheung.
“President Trump gave him absolutely no access for this trash book that either belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section of a discount bookstore or used as toilet tissue,” Cheung continued. “Woodward is a total sleazebag who has lost it mentally, and he's slow, lethargic, incompetent and overall a boring person with no personality.”
The comments come as Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has declined to say whether he supports Ukraine, instead pledging that he will settle the war should he win another term in the White House.
“I want the war to stop,” Trump said in his debate against Harris last month. "I want to save lives that are being killed by the millions.”
The war is “only getting worse and it could lead to World War III,” he said. “It’s in the U.S. best interest to get this war finished and get it done. Negotiate a deal because we have to stop all these human lives from being destroyed.”
He has not detailed how he would do so.
The book also gives new insight into President Joe Biden’s administration, including the Democratic incumbent’s handling of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
Per the book, Biden called Putin “the epitome of evil,” said that his former boss, Barack Obama, “never took Putin seriously,” citing the 2014 Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea, and expressed numerous frustrations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the war in Gaza intensified.
White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary Emilie Simons would not comment on the specific anecdotes in the book, merely sayingthat Biden and Netanyahu "have a long-term relationship" that she described as "very honest and direct."