Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and Watergate reporter Bob Woodward said in his newly-released book that former United States President Donald Trump had covertly sent Russia’s President Vladimir Putin COVID-19 tests for personal purposes during the 2020 shortage, a claim slammed by Trump’s camp.
According to an excerpt of “War” by Woodward, Trump maintained communications with Putin since he left the White House in 2021.
During his term, Trump gave Putin a set of Abbott Point of Care Covid test machines for the Russian leader’s personal use, as the latter was worried about catching the virus, US media rehashed from Woodward’s work.
The report also said Putin, to preserve Trump’s image, had asked him to keep the gift on the down low.
Trump’s campaign denounced these mere “made-up stories.”
“President Trump gave him absolutely no access for this trash book that either belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section of a discount bookstore or used as toilet tissue,” Steven Cheung, Trump campaign spokesperson, told the BBC.
“Woodward is an angry little man and is clearly upset because President Trump is successfully suing him because of the unauthorized publishing of recordings he made previously,” he also said. He additionally labeled Woodward “demented” and “deranged.”
Cheung is referring to the 2021 book “Rage,” for which Trump had been interviewed. Trump filed a lawsuit against Woodward on the grounds of not having greenlit the publishing of his interviews, which the journalist contested.
The reveal was ascribed to an unnamed Trump aide, who alleged the two have conversed about six times. They reported having once been kept from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago office so the former President could call Putin. The book did not go into the contents of Trump and Putin’s exchanges, and a Trump official had challenged these allegations, however.
“War” has raised questions about the relationship between these two powerful men, with the elections just around the corner. Last year, Russia was linked to Trump’s supposed interference with the US elections. No evidence supporting this has been discovered by America’s Department of Justice.
Alongside Carl Bernstein, Woodward pursued what would become the “biggest story of the 20th century” concerning American politics. The revelation of the Watergate scandal led to former US President Richard Nixon’s resignation.
