Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, attends an Oct. seventh remembrance occasion on the Trump Nationwide Doral Golf Membership on October 07, 2024 in Doral, Florida. | Photograph by JOE RAEDLE | Getty Photos by way of AFP
WASHINGTON, United States — Then-president Donald Trump secretly despatched Covid check kits to Vladimir Putin regardless of a US scarcity throughout the pandemic, and spoke a number of instances with the Russian chief after leaving workplace, Bob Woodward says in an explosive new e book.
The famed reporter’s opus additionally chronicles a few of President Joe Biden’s personal acknowledged missteps and his wrestle to forestall escalation of battle within the Center East, together with exasperation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over futile efforts to get Israel and Hamas to achieve a ceasefire.
In excerpts of “Conflict” printed Tuesday by The Washington Submit, the place Woodward is an affiliate editor, he says Trump retains a private relationship with Putin at the same time as he campaigns for one more time period and the Russian president conducts a conflict in opposition to US ally Ukraine.
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With the coronavirus raging in 2020, Trump despatched a batch of coveted checks to his counterpart in Moscow. Putin accepted the provides however sought to keep away from political fallout for Trump, urging he not reveal the dispatch of medical gear, the e book says.
In accordance with Woodward, Putin instructed Trump: “I don’t need you to inform anyone as a result of individuals will get mad at you, not me.”
Woodward additionally cites an unnamed Trump aide who indicated the Republican chief might have spoken to Putin as much as seven instances since leaving the White Home in 2021 — regardless of the US effort to assist Ukraine resist Russian invasion and the extreme deterioration of relations with Moscow.
The Submit, reporting Woodward’s account, stated that at one level in early 2024, Trump ordered an aide out of his workplace in his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida as a result of he wished to carry a personal name with ex-KGB officer Putin.
At a marketing campaign occasion Tuesday for Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Biden stated the way in which Trump dealt with the pandemic was a “shame.”
“Over one million individuals died. However guess what… he known as his good pal, Putin, not a joke, and made certain he had the checks,” Biden stated.
READ MORE: Trump on the stump, Harris hits airwaves in razor-edge US election
“Conflict” hits bookshelves October 15, simply three weeks earlier than a essential US election through which Trump is locked in a decent race in opposition to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Whereas Democrat Harris seems within the e book, she is seen in a supporting position to Biden “and hardly figuring out overseas coverage herself,” the Submit reported.
Harris, requested in regards to the e book Tuesday by well-liked radio host Howard Stern, stated Trump had been “performed” and manipulated throughout a well being calamity that noticed Individuals “dying by the a whole lot on daily basis.”
“Everyone was scrambling to get kits (and Trump) is sending them to Russia, to a murderous dictator for his private use,” Harris stated.
‘Made-up tales’
Woodward has chronicled American presidencies for 50 years, and that is his fourth e book since Trump’s upset victory in 2016. Woodward started his presidential reportages with Richard Nixon, who was undone by the Seventies Watergate scandal uncovered by Woodward and Submit colleague Carl Bernstein.
Woodward concluded that Trump’s interactions with an authoritarian president at conflict with a US ally make him extra unfit for the presidency than Nixon.
“Trump was probably the most reckless and impulsive president in American historical past and is demonstrating the exact same character as a presidential candidate in 2024,” Woodward writes.
The Trump marketing campaign blasted the e book as “made-up tales.”
They’re “the work of a very demented and deranged man who suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” spokesman Steven Cheung instructed AFP.
Trump has repeatedly praised Putin. Throughout the 2016 marketing campaign, the Republican memorably urged Moscow to “discover” hundreds of Hillary Clinton’s emails.
US intelligence businesses later concluded Russia had meddled in that election in Trump’s favor, though a particular counsel’s investigation discovered no conspiracy between the Trump camp and Moscow.
In accordance with CNN, which obtained a pre-release e book copy, Woodward quotes the outwardly mild-mannered Biden swearing as he discusses his private and political challenges.
Biden known as Putin “the epitome of evil,” blasted Netanyahu as a “liar” and stated he “ought to by no means have picked” Merrick Garland as US lawyer common.
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