WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump had seven private phone calls with Vladimir Putin after leaving office and secretly sent a COVID-19 test to the Russian president at the height of the pandemic, Bob says. -Reported by Mr. Woodward in his new book “War”. ”
The famous Watergate reporter also detailed President Joe Biden’s dissatisfaction with various burner phone calls between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Associated Press has obtained an early copy of the book, which is scheduled for release next week.
President Trump denied the report, telling ABC News’ Jonathan Karl that Woodward is “a storyteller.” It’s bad. And he lost his marbles. ”
Trump previously spoke about Woodward’s 2021 book “Rage.” Mr. Trump later filed a lawsuit over the matter, claiming that Mr. Woodward did not have permission to publicly release the recorded interviews for the book. The publisher and Woodward denied his claims.
The new book includes:
Mr. Trump has held numerous telephone conversations with Mr. Putin since the end of his term in the White House.
Woodward reported that Trump asked his aides to leave the Oval Office in the Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago so he could have a private call with Putin in early 2024. An aide, who Mr. Woodward did not name, spoke there. According to the book, there have been multiple phone calls between Trump and Putin since Trump left office, possibly as many as seven, but it is unclear what the two sides discussed. It is not written in detail.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends an enlarged meeting during the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Summit in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, October 8, 2024. (Sergei Ilnitsky/Pool Photo via AP)
Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser and longtime aide, told Woodward that he had not heard that Trump had any phone calls with Putin and said, “I disagree with that.” But Miller also said, “I’m sure they know how to get in touch with each other,” the book said.
President Trump’s communications director, Stephen Chan, said none of the stories in Woodward’s book are true. In a statement Tuesday, he called them “the work of a truly insane and deranged man suffering from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said reports about the call were “not true.”
Trump and Putin have been in a relationship since the 2016 election, when Trump made memorable calls for Russia to find and release missing emails deleted by Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. , has been scrutinized. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you find those 30,000 missing emails,” he said.
U.S. intelligence agencies later determined that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to support Trump, but an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller found no collusion between the Trump team and Russia. It turns out. In 2018, after a face-to-face meeting with President Putin in Helsinki, President Trump publicly questioned the findings.
President Trump has criticized U.S. support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression in recent years. He said Ukraine should have made concessions to Putin before Russia invaded in 2022. He has also previously touted his good relationship with President Vladimir Putin, saying the Russian leader was “pretty smart” about invading Ukraine.
President Trump sent coronavirus testing machine to President Putin for personal use
Woodward reports that President Trump sent a COVID-19 test machine to President Putin for personal use when the virus began to spread in 2020.
According to the book, Putin told Trump not to tell anyone because people would be furious with him, but Trump said he didn’t care if anyone found out. Trump ultimately agreed not to tell anyone.
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The book does not specify when the machines were sent, but says it was at a time when the virus was rapidly spreading across Russia. The Associated Press and others previously reported that the Trump administration sent ventilators and other equipment to several countries, including Russia, in May 2020.
“There was no secret transport. The pandemic had begun at that time,” Peskov said via messaging app on Wednesday. “Many countries were exchanging equipment. They sent ventilators. Testers came from America.”
Vice President Kamala Harris accused President Trump of giving machines to “murderous dictators” at a time when “everyone was scrambling to get tested” in an interview with radio host Howard Stern on Tuesday. did.
“This man who wants to be president again is secretly helping his enemy while hundreds of Americans die every day,” Democratic presidential candidate Harris said.
Biden highlighted the report during a visit to Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
“You know what happened today?” Biden said at a fundraiser for Sen. Bob Casey. “So he called his best friend, President Putin, no joke, to confirm that he had been tested. He had been tested.”
Biden’s anger at Netanyahu boils over in private
The book also details the complicated relationship between Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu, as well as the private moments when the president was fed up with Mr. Biden over the Israel-Hamas war.
File photojournalist Bob Woodward sits at the top table at the White House Correspondents Dinner on April 29, 2017 in Washington. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)
Biden’s “frustration and mistrust” with Netanyahu “exploded” this spring, Woodward writes. According to the book, the president went on a personal profanity-laced rant, calling him a “son of a bitch” and a “bad guy.” Mr. Biden said Mr. Woodward’s account gave him the impression that Mr. Netanyahu was “regularly lying.” Prime Minister Netanyahu “kept saying he was going to kill every last member of Hamas.” “Biden has threatened publicly and privately to withhold shipments of U.S. offensive weapons and has told them that is not possible,” Woodward wrote.
Biden and Netanyahu have known each other for years, but their relationship is not known to be close or overly friendly. Biden said last week that he did not know whether Israeli leaders were holding up a Middle East peace deal to influence the outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
“Our commitment to the state of Israel is ironclad,” White House press secretary Emily Simmons told reporters Tuesday when asked about the book’s coverage.
Asked for details, Simons said he would not comment on any anecdotes that may come out in the press. She added of Biden and Netanyahu: “They are in a long-term relationship. They have a very honest and direct relationship and I will not comment on those specific anecdotes.”
Biden criticizes President Obama’s response to Russia’s invasion of Crimea
The book is based on Biden’s response late last year to President Barack Obama’s response to Putin’s earlier invasion of Ukraine, when Russia occupied Crimea and parts of Donbas in 2014, when Biden was serving as Democratic vice president. details the criticisms of.
Woodward wrote that Biden told a close friend in December that “2014 was a disaster” and criticized Putin’s inaction in Ukraine. “Mr. Barak never took Mr. Putin seriously.”
Biden became angry during a conversation with a friend, saying in 2014 that “Putin shouldn’t have just walked in there” and that the United States “did nothing.”
Biden regrets choosing Garland as attorney general
Mr. Woodward reported that Mr. Biden was privately furious with Attorney General Merrick Garland, who had appointed a special prosecutor to investigate Mr. Biden’s son Hunter on tax and gun charges.
Mr. Woodward said Mr. Biden told his colleagues that “Mr. Garland should not have been chosen.” The journalist did not reveal the colleague’s name.
Hunter Biden was convicted on federal gun charges in June and is scheduled to be sentenced in December in federal court in Delaware. He has pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in California and is scheduled to be sentenced in December.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Graham says going to Mar-a-Lago is “a little like going to North Korea.”
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s longtime allies, said the 2020 election was rigged by the former president’s pandering at Mar-a-Lago and a cult of personality by his aides and advisers. He condemned Trump’s continued false claims that he was. constantly feeding on this story,” the book says.
Graham was at Mar-a-Lago with Trump over the weekend after Russia invaded Ukraine, which the senator described as “a little bit like going to North Korea.” “Every time Mr. Trump comes on, everyone stands up and applauds,” Graham added.
Regarding politics, Woodward wrote that Graham’s advice was part of what convinced Trump to run for president again.
In March, during one of his many Middle East visits since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, Mr. Graham suggested to Woodward that Mr. Graham call Mr. Trump. He said he was meeting with the Saudi crown prince at the time. Woodward said that from a “bag containing approximately 50 burner phones,” Prince Mohammed “removed one labeled ‘TRUMP 45.'” On another trip, the Saudi leader wrote that he pulled out another burner phone labeled “Jake Sullivan this time” when the men called. Biden’s national security adviser.
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Price reported from New York. Associated Press writers Hillel Italy in New York, Eric Tucker and Alana Durkin Richer in Washington, and Aamer Madhani on Air Force One contributed to this report.
