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09 October 2024 – 04:35
Donald Trump secretly sent Covid-19 detection tests when he was president to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, despite their shortage in the United States, and spoke with him several times after leaving office, according to a book by well-known journalist Bob Woodward.
In the book “War”, of which The Washington Post published several fragments this Tuesday, Woodward, one of the journalists who uncovered Watergate, gives details about Trump.
He assures that the Republican candidate for the White House remained in contact with Putin, even during his campaign for another presidential term, despite Russia waging a war in Ukraine, a US ally.
In 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump sent a batch of tests to Putin, who asked him to keep it secret.
According to Woodward, Putin told Trump, “I don’t want you to tell anyone because people will be mad at you, not me.”
Woodward also cites an anonymous Trump adviser who claims the former president spoke with Putin up to seven times since leaving the White House in 2021.
In early 2024, Trump ordered this aide to leave his office at the Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida so he could speak on the phone with Putin, he maintains.
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden criticized Trump for his handling of the pandemic, which he called “a disgrace.”
«More than a million people died. But guess what… he called his good friend, Putin, no joke, and made sure he had the tests” for covid detection, Biden said.
The book will go on sale on October 15, just three weeks before a very close election between Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Trump was the most reckless and impulsive president in American history and he is demonstrating the same character as a presidential candidate in 2024,” Woodward wrote.
Trump’s campaign team called the book “garbage” and “made-up stories.” They are “the work of a truly demented and deranged man,” communications director Steven Cheung told AFP.
The book recounts some of Biden’s mistakes and his struggle to avoid an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.
It includes Biden’s exasperation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as his efforts to get Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire are unsuccessful.
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