WASHINGTON: Then-president Donald Trump secretly sent COVID-19 test kits to Vladimir Putin despite a US shortage during the pandemic, and spoke multiple times with the Russian leader after leaving office, Bob Woodward says in an explosive new book.
The famed reporter’s opus also chronicles some of President Joe Biden’s own acknowledged missteps and his struggle to prevent escalation of conflict in the Middle East, including exasperation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over futile efforts to get Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire.
In excerpts of War published on Tuesday (Oct 8) by The Washington Post, where Woodward is an associate editor, he says Trump retains a personal relationship with Putin even as he campaigns for another term and the Russian president conducts a war against US ally Ukraine.
With the coronavirus raging in 2020, Trump sent a batch of coveted tests to his counterpart in Moscow. Putin accepted the supplies but sought to avoid political fallout for Trump, urging he not reveal the dispatch of medical equipment, the book says.
According to Woodward, Putin told Trump: “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me.”
Woodward also cites an unnamed Trump aide who indicated the Republican leader may have spoken to Putin up to seven times since leaving the White House in 2021 – despite the US effort to help Ukraine resist Russian invasion and the severe deterioration of relations with Moscow.
The Post, reporting Woodward’s account, said that at one point in early 2024, Trump ordered an aide out of his office in his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida because he wanted to hold a private call with ex-KGB officer Putin.
At a campaign event on Tuesday for Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Biden said the way Trump handled the pandemic was a “disgrace”.
“Over a million people died. But guess what … he called his good friend, Putin, not a joke, and made sure he had the tests,” Biden said.
Source: CNA
