Ex-U.S. President Donald Trump secretly sent Covid-19 tests to Russian President Vladimir Putin amid a domestic shortage at the height of the pandemic in 2020, The Washington Post reported Tuesday, citing its associate editor Bob Woodward’s upcoming book.
Putin, a known germophobe who was widely said to have taken extra precautionary measures including extended self-isolation during the pandemic, reportedly accepted Trump’s tests but urged him to avoid going public about them.
“I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me,” Putin was quoted as saying to Trump at the time.
Woodward’s “War,” an account of the Biden administration’s management of the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars which comes out next Tuesday, does not cite the source for the story.
The Kremlin has not commented on the report in the book, while Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign spokesman said “None of these made-up stories by Bob Woodward are true” and argued his book should be “used as toilet tissue.”
“War” cites an unnamed Trump aide saying that he may have spoken to Putin as many as seven times since leaving the presidency in 2021.
One of the latest Trump-Putin talks may have taken place at his Mar-a-Lago residence in early 2024, suggesting the personal relationship between the two men appears to have persisted long after Trump left office.
Trump’s continuing influence on the Republican Party had also slowed legislative votes on sending U.S. military aid packages to Ukraine, the book reportedly said. Senior Republicans were able to convince Trump that softening his stance would help the party win seats and him the presidency in November.
Elsewhere in the book, Woodward reports that a “human source inside the Kremlin” alongside other American spies had helped U.S. intelligence gain “remarkable insight” into Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine in 2022.
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