Former U.S. president Donald Trump, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands at the beginning of a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16, 2018.Pablo Martinez Monsivais/The Associated Press
Donald Trump has had as many as seven private phone calls with Vladimir Putin since leaving office and secretly sent the Russian president COVID-19 test machines during the height of the pandemic, Bob Woodward reported in his new book, War.
The revelations were made in the famed Watergate reporter’s latest book, which also details U.S. President Joe Biden’s frustrations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman‘s assortment of burner phones. The Associated Press obtained an early copy of the book, which is due out next week.
Steven Cheung, Mr. Trump’s communications director, denied the accounts in the book. “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,” Mr. Cheung said in a statement.
Mr. Trump had previously spoken to Mr. Woodward for the journalist’s 2021 book, Rage. Mr. Trump later sued over it, claiming Mr. Woodward never had permission to publicly release recordings of their interviews for the book. The publisher and Mr. Woodward denied his allegations.
Here is more from the new book:
Trump has had multiple calls with Putin since his White House term ended
Mr. Woodward reports that Mr. Trump asked an aide to leave his office at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, so that the former president could have a private call with Mr. Putin in early 2024. The aide, whom Mr. Woodward doesn’t name, said there have been multiple calls between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin since Mr. Trump left office, perhaps as many as seven, according to the book, though it does not detail what they discussed.
Trump senior adviser and long-time aide Jason Miller told Mr. Woodward that he had not heard Mr. Trump was having calls with Mr. Putin and said, “I’d push back on that.” But Mr. Miller also said, according to the book, “I’m sure they’d know how to get in touch with each other.”
Mr. Trump’s relationship with Mr. Putin has been scrutinized since his 2016 campaign for president, when he memorably called on Russia to find and make public missing e-mails deleted by Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing,” he said.
U.S. intelligence agencies later determined that Russia had meddled in the 2016 election to help Mr. Trump, though an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller found no conspiracy between the Trump team and Russia. In 2018, Mr. Trump publicly questioned that finding after an in-person meeting with Mr. Putin in Helsinki.
In recent years, Mr. Trump has criticized U.S. support for Ukraine as it fights off Russia’s invasion. He has said Ukraine should have made concessions to Mr. Putin before Russia invaded in 2022. He also previously touted his good relationship with Mr. Putin and called the Russian leader “pretty smart” for invading Ukraine.
Mr. Trump sent COVID-19 test machines to Mr. Putin for his personal use
Mr. Woodward reports that Mr. Trump sent Mr. Putin COVID-19 test machines for his personal use as the virus began spreading in 2020.
Mr. Putin told Mr. Trump not to tell anyone because people would be mad at Mr. Trump over it, but Mr. Trump said he didn’t care if anyone knew, according to the book. Mr. Trump ended up agreeing not to tell anyone.
The book doesn’t specify when the machines were sent, but describes it as being when the virus spread rapidly through Russia. It was previously reported by the Associated Press and other agencies that Mr. Trump’s administration in May, 2020, sent ventilators and other equipment to several countries, including Russia.
Vice-President Kamala Harris, in an interview Tuesday with radio host Howard Stern, accused Mr. Trump of giving the machines to a “murderous dictator” at a time when “everyone was scrambling” to get tests.
“This person who wants to be president again, who secretly is helping out an adversary while the American people are dying by the hundreds every day,” said Ms. Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate.
Mr. Biden’s anger at Mr. Netanyahu has boiled over in private
The book also details Mr. Biden’s complicated relationship with Mr. Netanyahu as well as private moments when the President has been fed up with him over the Israel-Hamas war.
Mr. Biden’s “frustrations and distrust” of Mr. Netanyahu “erupted” this past spring, Mr. Woodward writes. The president privately unleashed a profanity-laden tirade, calling him a “son of a bitch” and a “bad f——— guy,” according to the book. Mr. Biden said he felt, in Mr. Woodward’s accounting, that Mr. Netanyahu “had been lying to him regularly.” With Mr. Netanyahu “continuing to say he was going to kill every last member of Hamas.” Mr. Woodward wrote, “Biden had told him that was impossible, threatening both privately and publicly to withhold offensive U.S. weapons shipment.”
Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu have long been acquainted, although their relationship has not been known to be close or overly friendly. Last week, Mr. Biden said he didn’t know whether the Israeli leader was holding up a Mideast peace deal in order to influence the outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
Asked about the book’s reporting, White House spokesperson Emilie Simons told reporters Tuesday that “The commitment that we have to the state of Israel is ironclad.”
Ms. Simons, when pressed on the details, said she wouldn’t comment on every anecdote that may come out in reporting. She added of Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu: “They have a long-term relationship. They have a very honest and direct relationship, and I don’t have a comment on those specific anecdotes.”
Mr. Biden criticized Mr. Obama’s handling of the Russian invasion of Crimea
The book details Mr. Biden’s criticism late last year of former president Barack Obama’s handling of Mr. Putin’s earlier invasion of Ukraine, when Russia seized Crimea and a section of the Donbas in 2014, at a time when Mr. Biden was serving as the Democrat’s vice-president.
“They f----- up in 2014,” Mr. Woodward wrote that Mr. Biden said to a close friend in December, blaming the lack of action for Mr. Putin’s actions in Ukraine. “Barack never took Putin seriously.”
Mr. Biden was angry while speaking to the friend and said they “never should have let Putin just walk in there” in 2014 and that the U.S. “did nothing.”
Mr. Biden regrets choosing Garland as attorney-general
Mr. Woodward reports Mr. Biden was privately furious with Attorney-General Merrick Garland for appointing a special counsel to investigate Mr. Biden’s son Hunter in a tax-and-gun prosecution.
“Should never have picked Garland,” Mr. Biden told an associate, according to Mr. Woodward. The journalist did not name the associate.
Hunter Biden was convicted in June on federal gun charges and faces sentencing in federal court in Delaware in December. He pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in California and is also set to be sentenced in that case in December.
Graham says going to Mar-a-Lago is ‘a little bit like going to North Korea’
One of Trump’s longest-term allies, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, blamed Mr. Trump’s continuing false claims that the 2020 election was rigged to a cult of personality in which the former president’s ensconcement at Mar-a-Lago and circle of aides and advisers “constantly feed this narrative,” according to the book.
The weekend after Russia invaded Ukraine, Mr. Graham was with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, which the senator characterized as “a little bit like going to North Korea.” Mr. Graham added that “everybody stands up and claps every time Trump comes in.”
On politics, Mr. Woodward wrote that Mr. Graham’s counsel was part of what persuaded Mr. Trump to run again for the presidency.
In March, during one of his many visits to the Middle East since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Mr. Graham told Mr. Woodward that he had been meeting with the Saudi crown prince when Mr. Graham suggested they call Mr. Trump. From “a bag containing about 50 burner phones,” Prince Mohammed “pulled out one labelled ‘TRUMP 45.’ ” On another trip, Mr. Woodward wrote, the Saudi leader retrieved another burner phone, “this time labelled JAKE SULLIVAN” when the men called Mr. Biden’s national security adviser.