Donald Trump secretly sent Covid-19 testing machines to Vladimir Putin in the early stages of the pandemic when such resources were in short supply, the veteran reporter Bob Woodward reveals in an eagerly awaited new book.
According to Woodward, Trump “secretly sent Putin a bunch of Abbott Point of Care Covid test machines for his personal use”.
In response, the Russian president told his US counterpart: “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you.”
Remarkably, Woodward also reports that the relationship between the two men, hugely controversial during Trump’s first presidential campaign and subsequent four years in the White House, has continued since Trump has been out of power, through as many as seven private calls.
The revelations were among many published by US outlets on Tuesday, among them dramatic scenes of Joe Biden warning Putin not to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine and new reporting about how Biden was this summer convinced to step aside as the Democratic nominee for president, clearing the way for the vice-president, Kamala Harris, to challenge Trump in November.
Now 81 – the same age as Biden – Woodward has been a Washington institution since the 1970s, when his work with Carl Bernstein on the Watergate scandal led to Richard Nixon’s resignation as president. Following three scoop-filled books on Trump’s presidency – Fear, Rage and Peril, the last co-written with Robert Costa – Woodward’s new book, War, considers key events under Biden including the Russian war in Ukraine, Israel’s war against Hamas, and political battles at home. It will be published next week.
Excerpts were released by Woodward’s two employers, the Washington Post and CNN.
Though the US and Russia did share medical equipment such as ventilators in the early stages of the pandemic, Trump’s decision to send Putin Covid testing machines would probably have proved hugely controversial if known.
Apparently recognizing this, Putin reportedly told Trump: “Please don’t tell anybody you sent these to me.”
Trump said: “I don’t care. Fine.”
Putin was said to have replied: “No, no. I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me. They don’t care about me.”
Trump lost the White House later in 2020 but, remarkably, Woodward says calls between the two men have continued. Earlier this year, Woodward writes, Trump ordered an aide to leave his office at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, so he could hold a private call with Putin.
Worries persist about Putin’s influence on Trump. Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who investigated links between Trump and Moscow around the 2016 election, concluding that Putin sought to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton, recently said Russia would interfere again this year.
According to the Post, Woodward reports that Jason Miller, a close Trump adviser, responded hesitantly when asked about Trump and Putin’s continuing calls.
“Um, ah, not that, ah, not that I’m aware of,” Miller reportedly said, adding: “I have not heard that they’re talking, so I’d push back on that.”
Woodward adds that Avril Haines, Biden’s director of national intelligence, “carefully hedged”, saying: “I would not purport to be aware of all contacts with Putin. I wouldn’t purport to speak to what President Trump may or may not have done.”
On Tuesday, Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, said: “None of these made-up stories by Bob Woodward are true and are the work of a truly demented and deranged man … clearly upset because President Trump is successfully suing him because of the unauthorized publishing of recordings he made previously.”
That lawsuit concerns tapes of calls that Woodward released in 2022 and over which Trump sued the following year. Woodward has sought to have the suit dismissed.
Drama around Woodward’s new book comes less than a month from the 5 November presidential election, when Trump could be returned to office. According to Axios, which cited sources who had seen Woodward’s book, Woodward describes a 4 July White House lunch at which Antony Blinken, Biden’s secretary of state, discussed with the president whether he should withdraw, given concerns about his age and fitness.
Three weeks later, Biden withdrew, a historic decision that has placed a spotlight on Trump’s own age, 78, and mental state. In Woodward’s judgment, according to the Post, “Trump was the most reckless and impulsive president in American history and is demonstrating the very same character as a presidential candidate in 2024.”
And yet Trump and Harris remain locked in a tight race, notwithstanding Trump’s two impeachments, one for inciting the deadly January 6 attack on Congress; his conviction on 34 criminal charges concerning hush-money payments; his other ongoing criminal cases, over election subversion and retention of classified information; multimillion-dollar civil penalties in cases including a defamation suit arising from a rape claim a judge deemed “substantially true”; and proliferating other scandals.
Elsewhere, Woodward’s book reportedly captures Biden’s candid responses to foreign policy challenges.
The president is reportedly depicted calling Benjamin Netanyahu, the rightwing Israeli prime minister who has resisted US attempts to secure a ceasefire with Hamas, “That son of a bitch” and “a bad fucking guy!”
“That fucking Putin,” Biden reportedly said about the Russian president. “Putin is evil. We are dealing with the epitome of evil.”
Russian aggression against Ukraine began when Barack Obama was US president. According to Woodward, Biden believes the man under whom he was vice-president between 2009 and 2017 “never took Putin seriously” – a point of view familiar from reports of tensions between the two men.
“They fucked up in 2014” when Russia invaded Crimea, Biden told a friend, according to Woodward. “That’s why we are here. We fucked it up. Barack never took Putin seriously. We did nothing. We gave Putin a license to continue! Well, I’m revoking his fucking license!”
According to CNN, Woodward reports that in October 2021, US intelligence including material from a precious human source inside the Kremlin “conclusively” showed that Putin planned to invade Ukraine. Biden reportedly told Bill Burns, the CIA director: “Jesus Christ! Now I’ve got to deal with Russia swallowing Ukraine?”
According to Woodward, Biden confronted Putin twice that December, on a video conference and then a “hot 50-minute call” in which Putin “raised the risk of nuclear war in a threatening way” and Biden told him “it’s impossible to win” such a conflict.
Woodward also reports an October 2022 conversation between Lloyd Austin, the US secretary of defense, and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, about possible use of nuclear weapons.
“If you did this, all the restraints that we have been operating under in Ukraine would be reconsidered,” Austin reportedly said. “This would isolate Russia on the world stage to a degree you Russians cannot fully appreciate.”
Shoigu said: “I don’t take kindly to being threatened.”
Austin said: “Mr Minister, I am the leader of the most powerful military in the history of the world. I don’t make threats.”
In another call two days later, Woodward reports, Shoigu claimed Ukraine was planning to use a “dirty bomb”, a claim the US deemed false but meant to justify a Russian nuclear strike.
“We don’t believe you,” Austin reportedly said. “We don’t see any indications of this, and the world will see through this. Don’t do it.”
“I understand,” Shoigu replied.
Colin Kahl, a senior Pentagon official, tells Woodward: “It was probably the most hair-raising moment of the whole war.”
Woodward also reports that the US struggled to convince Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, that Russia would actually invade. At the Munich Security Conference in February 2022, Harris reportedly told Zelenskyy to “start thinking about things like having a succession plan in place … if you are captured or killed or cannot govern”, then left Germany thinking she might not see Zelenskyy again.
Russia invaded that month. Two and a half years later, the war drags on, Zelenskyy defiant in Kyiv. Democrats, however, warn that given Trump’s close ties to Putin, a second Trump presidency would have dire consequences for Ukraine and its allies.
