Then-President Donald Trump secretly sent Covid-19 test kits to Vladimir Putin in 2020, despite product shortages in the United States during the pandemic, and spoke to the Russian leader several times after leaving office , according to a new book by Bob Woodward.
Background: Excerpts from the explosive book published Tuesday by the Washington Post, of which Woodward is an associate editor, allege that Trump maintains a personal relationship with Putin even as he campaigns for another term and the Russian president wages war against the United States’ ally United, Ukraine.
With the coronavirus ravaging the world in 2020, Trump sent a batch of test kits to his counterpart in Moscow. Putin accepted the supplies but tried to avoid political fallout for Trump, urging him not to reveal the shipment of medical equipment, the book said.
Key Quote: According to Woodward, Putin told Trump: “I don’t want you to tell anyone because people will be angry at you, not at me.”
What else to know: Woodward has chronicled American presidencies for 50 years, and this is his fourth book since Trump’s upset victory in 2016. He began his presidential reporting with Richard Nixon, who was destroyed by the 1970s Watergate scandal exposed by Woodward and his Post colleague Carl Bernstein.
What comes next: “War” is scheduled for release on October 15, just three weeks before a critical U.S. election in which Trump is locked in a tight race against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
Trump’s campaign dismissed the book as “made-up stories.”
They are “the work of a truly demented and deranged man suffering from a debilitating case of Trump disorder syndrome,” spokesman Steven Cheung told AFP.