Trump and Putin Secretly Stayed in Contact, According to Bob Woodward’s Latest Book

Journalist Bob Woodward’s new book says Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly continued to interact after the former president left office.
The book, called War, alleges Trump and Putin have had as many as seven phone calls since early 2021 and that Trump asked one aide to leave the room so they could speak.
The book, obtained by CNN ahead of its release on October 15, draws from hundreds of hours of firsthand interviews and spotlights newly reported details of high-stakes confrontations during the Trump and Joe Biden presidencies.
Woodward, a veteran investigative journalist who along with Carl Bernstein broke the original news on the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post in the early 1970s, also wrote about Biden’s profanity-laden comments about the Russian leader.
Reacting to the revelations Tuesday morning, Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung told Newsweek that Woodward’s book belonged in a “bargain bin.”
“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,” Cheung said in an emailed statement.
Woodward also wrote that Trump had become more erratic, citing conversations with South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who urged his ally to move on from his views that the 2020 election was stolen.
“Going to [Trump’s Florida estate] Mar-a-Lago is a little bit like going to North Korea,” Graham told Woodward. “Everybody stands up and claps every time Trump comes in.”
Woodward’s new book alleges that the Republican presidential nominee and Putin have had as many as seven phone calls since early 2021, when the Republican left the White House.
In one section, Woodward described an alleged incident at Mar-a-Lago when he said Trump instructed a senior aide to leave the room so he could have what he termed a private phone call with Putin.
“According to Trump’s aide, there have been multiple phone calls between Trump and Putin, possibly as many as seven since Trump left the White House in 2021,” wrote Woodward, according to CNN’s review of the book.
Woodward said he reportedly questioned Trump aide Jason Miller about whether Trump and Putin had spoken since Trump’s departure from the White House. “Um, ah, not that, ah, not that I’m aware of,” Miller responded, Woodward wrote. “I have not heard that they’re talking, so I’d push back on that,” Miller added, the book said.
Woodward further noted that Biden’s Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines “carefully hedged” when asked about any post-presidency communications between Trump and Putin.
“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,” Haines said, according to Woodward.
Among the other allegations in the book is that a secret shipment from Trump was sent to Putin during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
During the height of the pandemic, Russia and the U.S. exchanged medical equipment, including ventilators. However, Putin, who notoriously isolated himself due to fears of COVID, instructed Trump in a phone call to keep the delivery of the Abbott machines discreet, Woodward reported.
According to the book, Trump “sent Putin a bunch of Abbott Point of Care Covid test machines for his personal use” and Russia’s president asked his U.S. counterpart to keep the shipment quiet.
“Please don’t tell anybody you sent these to me,” Putin allegedly said to Trump, who replied: “I don’t care. Fine.”
Trump recently vowed at a rally in Savannah, Georgia, to get the U.S. “out” of Ukraine if he wins the presidency in November.
Discussing the Russia-Ukraine war on September 24, the former president criticized Joe Biden’s leadership during the conflict and pledged to end American participation.
The U.S. has provided significant aid and weapons packages to Ukraine, but it has at no stage been directly involved in the war or had personnel on the ground.
Trump said: “But we’re stuck in that war unless I’m president. I’ll get it done, I’ll get it negotiated, I’ll get out. We gotta get out.”
He introduced the topic by claiming “Biden and Kamala got us into this war in Ukraine and now they can’t get us out.” He also said that “every time Zelensky comes to the United States he walks away with $100 billion, I swear he’s the greatest salesman on Earth.”
He reiterated his claims that the U.S. has been involved with the war for too long and needed to move on.
Trump also appeared to imply that Russia would not lose the war, as he alluded to how Napoleon failed to invade Russia in the early 19th century and spoke of Moscow’s victories in helping to defeat Hitler during World War II.
The Republican presidential candidate also claimed that the U.S. had given Ukraine close to $300 billion and that Europe has given them “a small fraction of that number.”