By Andrew Howard, Politico, 10/8/24
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin “maybe as many as seven” times since leaving office in 2021, journalist Bob Woodward reports in a forthcoming book obtained by CNN.
Woodward also writes that Trump, while in office, sent Putin Covid-19 testing machines for his private use during the height of the pandemic. The reporting, which the Trump campaign vehemently denied, quickly reignited allegations of an overly cozy relationship between the two leaders that Trump has for years worked to downplay and dismiss.
Trump campaign aide Jason Miller told Woodward for the book that he had not heard of such calls. Campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung was adamant in denying Woodward’s reporting and vicious in leveling personal attacks against the veteran journalist best known for his work at The Washington Post during the Watergate scandal.
“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,” Cheung said in a lengthy statement that also called Woodward an “angry, little man.”
The Trump campaign spokesperson said Woodward’s book “either belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section of a discount bookstore or used as toilet tissue.”
Vice President Kamala Harris was swift to jump on the reporting, telling Howard Stern on Tuesday the reporting “is just the most recent stark example of who Trump is.”
“People in America were struggling to get tests, and this guy is sending them to Russia, to a murderous dictator for his personal use?” Harris said.
Woodward also reports that President Joe Biden blamed former President Barack Obama’s handling of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula for the Kremlin’s wider invasion of Ukraine in 2022. “They fucked up in 2014,” Biden said to a friend, according to Woodward. “That’s why we are here. We fucked it up. Barack never took Putin seriously.”
Biden saved especially harsh language for the Russian president and his ongoing war in Ukraine.
“That fucking Putin,” Biden told advisers in the Oval Office, according to the book. “Putin is evil. We are dealing with the epitome of evil.”
The book, according to CNN, details Biden’s conversations with national security officials leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. After seeing details that Russia planned to invade, Biden replied: “This would be so crazy.”
“Jesus Christ!” Biden said. “Now I’ve got to deal with Russia swallowing Ukraine?”
The book also details exchanges between Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including Biden accusing Netanyahu of having “no strategy” for the war in Gaza that has killed more than 40,000 people. Woodward details a moment when Biden called Netanyahu a “bad fucking guy,” which POLITICO reported in February.
Other details of the book, which chronicles the many tensions of Biden’s time in office, include Biden saying he should have never chosen Attorney General Merrick Garland, Sen. Lindsey Graham comparing Mar-a-Lago to North Korea — “everybody stands up and claps every time Trump comes in,” Woodward reports the South Carolina senator saying — and Biden calling Trump “that fucking asshole” in private.
Biden’s propensity to use bad language in private is nothing new. POLITICO detailed his private language back in October of 2021, where he would repeatedly use the F-word with aides and in meetings.