Former President Donald Trump has remained in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since leaving office and has had more than a handful of phone calls with him, according to explosive allegations contained in Bob Woodward’s new book.
Woodward describes the extent of the contacts and attributes them to a Trump aide in his new book War, cnn reported.
There were “maybe as many as seven” after Trump left office in 2021, Woodward writes. And the timeline extends to after Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine.
The intervening period has seen brutal missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and towns, and the resulting avalanche of sanctions from the United States and its allies against Russia, as well as against Putin and members of his circle.
Trump has repeatedly stated at his campaign events that Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if he had still been in office.
During the height of the pandemic in 2020, Trump also sent Putin a secret stash of Abbott Covid testing machines “for his personal use,” Woodward reports.
It came at a time of gestures of solidarity as the pandemic spread, but Putin reportedly wanted to keep it a secret.
Call a friend? Former President Donald Trump has had up to seven phone calls with Vladimir Putin since leaving office, according to Bob Woodward’s new book. Trump has repeatedly endorsed his good relations with the Russian dictator
“Please don’t tell anyone you sent this to me,” Putin told Trump, according to Woodward. “I don’t care,” Trump told him. ‘Good.’
“I don’t want you to tell anyone because people will be angry with you, not me,” Putin told him. Washington Post reported.
Woodward interviewed Trump for his latest book, but Trump publicly attacked the author.
Putin maintained an extraordinary level of isolation during the start of the pandemic, and some experts believe that the fact that he was cut off from outside contact may have contributed to his decision to launch an invasion that has cost thousands of Russians and Ukrainians. .
A call occurred in early 2024, according to the Post, which also obtained the book. It reported that Trump ordered an aide away from his Mar-a-Lago office for the call with Putin.
The report comes days after the New York Times reported on Trump’s meeting with Putin in Hamburg in 2017, their first face-to-face meeting.
Putin, whose forces had already seized Crimea, told Trump that Ukraine “was a corrupt, made-up country.” Trump told him he was considering sending weapons to Ukraine, according to the Times.
Get a test: Putin advised Trump not to tell people that he had sent him Covid tests at the beginning of the pandemic because people might get angry with him.
Trump endorsed his relationship with Putin during his September meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
‘What do you think?’ Trump asked him, in a meeting that apparently unsettled former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. “We have work to do to change the president’s mind on Ukraine,” Tillerson told aides as the meeting concluded.
Woodward’s book paints a contrasting picture of President Joe Biden, whose administration has sent billions in sophisticated weaponry to kyiv.
“That fucking Putin,” Biden told his advisers after the invasion. ‘Putin is evil. “We are facing the personification of evil,” he said.
Last month, Trump stood alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and said he would end the bloody conflict. He has criticized U.S. funding for Ukraine, and his efforts to get Zelensky to investigate the Bidens were highlighted in Trump’s first impeachment trial.
“I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin and I think if we win (the election) we will resolve it very quickly,” Trump said.