New book by Bob Woodward… And new revelations. In his book Warto be released on October 15, the American journalism legend reveals that Donald Trump secretly sent Covid-19 screening tests to Russian President Vladimir Putin when he was at the White House, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and then that the United States lacked it.
According to the account of the American media which had access to the book, the correct pages of which were revealed this Tuesday, October 8, Vladimir Putin received the anti-Covid tests and urged Donald Trump not to say anything: “I want If you don’t tell anyone, people will be angry with you, not me,” the Russian president reportedly told him.
Veteran journalist Bob Woodward also writes that Donald Trump has maintained a personal relationship with Vladimir Putin, despite the Russian invasion of Ukraine and as he aspires to return to the White House. According to an advisor who remains anonymous, the former American president has spoken in secret to his Russian counterpart up to seven times since he left power in 2021. At the start of 2024, he reportedly asked a collaborator to leave his office at the Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, to have a telephone conversation with the Russian president. This assertion was denied this Wednesday morning by the Kremlin spokesperson: “No, that is not the case,” assured Dmitri Peskov to the Russian news site RBK.
“A demented and unbalanced man”
“None of these stories fabricated by Bob Woodward are true, it is the work of a truly insane and unbalanced man,” responded Steven Cheung, one of the spokespersons for the Republican presidential candidate, saying the book “could serve as toilet paper.”
Kamala Harris, Donald Trump’s Democratic rival in the presidential election, expressed her indignation. “Everyone in America was struggling to get kits […] and this guy is sending them to Russia, to a murderous dictator, for his personal use?” “This is just the latest and greatest example of who Donald Trump is,” the vice president added.
US President Joe Biden reacted during an event in Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening by denouncing Donald Trump’s “shameful” management of the pandemic. “More than a million people died but guess what? […] He called his friend Vladimir Putin, this is not a joke, and made sure that he had tests” while the United States lacked them. These revelations once again shine the spotlight on the relationship established by Donald Trump with Russia and risk reinforcing fears for the fate of Ukraine in the event of the Republican candidate’s return to the White House.
Netanyahu called a “liar” by Biden
In his book, Bob Woodward also describes Joe Biden’s vain efforts to stop Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip after the deadly Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. According to this work, the American president complained to his advisers, affirming that Benjamin Netanyahu was a “liar”, “only interested in his political survival”. At the beginning of September, Joe Biden publicly estimated that the Israeli Prime Minister was not doing enough to reach an agreement for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Despite his recriminations, the American president has so far refused to use the leverage of the delivery of weapons to Israel to influence the policy of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, apart from suspending a delivery of bombs in last May.
A behind-the-scenes chronicler of the White House for half a century with the Washington PostBob Woodward revealed with Carl Bernstein the Watergate scandal which led to the resignation of President Nixon in 1974.