Trump secretly sent covid tests to Putin during 2020 shortage, new book says
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
As the coronavirus tore through the world in 2020, and the United States and other countries confronted a shortage of tests designed to detect the illness, then-President Donald Trump secretly sent coveted tests to Russian President Vladimir Putin for his personal use.
Putin, petrified of the virus, accepted the supplies but took pains to prevent political fallout — not for him, but for his American counterpart. He cautioned Trump not to reveal that he had dispatched the scarce medical equipment to Moscow, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward .
The book does not describe what the two men purportedly discussed, and it quotes a Trump campaign official casting doubt on the supposed contact. But the unnamed Trump aide cited in the book indicated that the GOP standard-bearer may have spoken to Putin as many as seven times since Trump left the White House in 2021.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said, “None of these made-up stories by Bob Woodward are true," issuing a string of personal attacks on the author and saying Trump didn’t give him an interview for the book. Cheung argued that the book “either belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section of a discount bookstore or used as toilet tissue.”
With publication on the eve of the presidential election, Woodward, who has chronicled the successes and failures of U.S. presidents for 50 years, concludes that Trump is unfit for office while President Joe Biden and his team, mistakes notwithstanding, exhibited “steady and purposeful leadership.” Vice President Kamala Harris , the Democratic presidential nominee, makes several appearances in the narrative, with Woodward presenting her as a shrewd and loyal No. 2 to Biden but not an influential voice in his administration’s foreign policy.
The book also examines the long shadow cast by Trump over the foreign conflicts of the past four years, and over the bitter U.S. political environment in which they have unfolded. And it includes candid assessments by Biden of his own missteps, including his decision to make Merrick Garland attorney general. Reacting to the prosecution of his son Hunter — by a special prosecutor named by Garland amid partisan recriminations over the Justice Department’s prosecution of Trump — the president told an associate, “Should never have picked Garland.”
Woodward reveals how Biden weighed his fate before exiting the presidential race in July, including over lunch earlier that month with Antony Blinken, his secretary of state. Blinken, reports Woodward, warned Biden in the private dining room off the Oval Office that everyone’s legacy is reduced to a single sentence — and that, if he continued to campaign and lost to Trump, that would be his legacy.
“War” illuminates the frantic, and often failed, effort by Biden’s team to prevent escalation of fighting in the Middle East — fighting that the president came to see as inseparable from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political fortunes, and from political dynamics in the United States, too.
According to Woodward, one of Trump’s national security advisers, Keith Kellogg, secretly met with Netanyahu during a trip to Israel earlier this year. Upon his return, Kellogg publicly circulated a memo effectively blaming Biden for the Hamas -led attack on Israel, writing, “This visit reinforced that the Biden Administration’s erosion of U.S. deterrence globally and its failed policies vis-à-vis Iran have opened America up to a regional war in the Middle East with devastating consequences for our ally Israel.”
On Ukraine, too, Trump’s influence was pronounced, even from his home at Mar-a-Lago. The former president’s resistance to funding Kyiv’s war effort created a blockade on GOP support in the House. This past spring, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was able to persuade Trump to soften his stance, according to Woodward, not by showing him that Ukraine’s cause was just, but by convincing him that the aid package would help the Republican conference’s electoral chances and thus benefit him personally in the run-up to the November election.
“War” offers several snapshots of Harris, always in a supporting role to Biden and hardly determining foreign policy herself.
From the Israeli viewpoint, however, Harris had little responsibility for the administration’s approach to the conflict.
“Until now, I didn’t feel that Vice President Harris had any impact on our issues,” Michael Herzog, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, is quoted as saying about the period before Harris replaced Biden on the ticket. “She was in the room, but she never had an impact.”
“Mr. President, I’m the notetaker,” one person deflected.
“Oh, no,” Trump replied, “if you’re in this room, you’re talking.” The notetaker briefly shared her views.
“War” presents the withdrawal from Afghanistan , in the summer of 2021, as a wound for the Biden administration that would shape its response to other international flash points. The debacle, in which U.S. intelligence failed to foresee how quickly the Taliban would seize power, elicited sympathy from the architect of the initial 2001 invasion, George W. Bush, who told Biden, according to the book: “Oh boy, I can understand what you’re going through. I got [expletive] by my intel people, too.”
The book shows how Biden’s early decisions, which were sometimes in conflict with the judgments of his closest advisers, shaped the course of the war. Foremost was his public vow that Washington would not commit troops to the conflict, which took a key bargaining chip off the table but laid down a marker for the American public wary of new foreign entanglements. Biden, according to Woodward, felt past Russian aggression had been badly mismanaged by his predecessors, including the one he had served, Barack Obama.
Biden’s own blunders were costly, the book reveals. In January 2022, he seemed to undercut American resolve by raising the possibility that Russia might seek only a “minor incursion.” His national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, had to do damage control with counterparts in nine NATO countries, in addition to Japan, Woodward reveals.
Woodward writes that Biden’s most delicate diplomacy, however, involved seeking to foreclose Russia’s nuclear option. In the fall of 2022, that option seemed like a live one, as U.S. intelligence agencies reported that Putin was seriously weighing use of a tactical nuclear weapon — at one point assessing the likelihood at 50 percent. An especially frantic quest to bring Moscow back from the brink came in October of that year, when Russia appeared to be laying the groundwork for escalation by accusing Ukraine of preparing to detonate a dirty bomb.
Biden’s team confronted similar hair-raising moments with the Israelis, Woodward reports, foreshadowing Netanyahu’s recent campaign against Hezbollah , the Lebanon-based militant group and Iranian proxy, in an explicit rejection of U.S. calls for a cease-fire. In a parallel of unsubstantiated Russian claims of Ukraine’s intention to use a dirty bomb, the Israelis seemed poised, in the days after Oct. 7, 2023, to launch a preemptive strike against Hezbollah based on what American experts deemed “phantom” warnings of Hezbollah mobilization along Israel’s northern border.
“The Israelis always do this,” was the reaction of Brett McGurk, Biden’s Middle East coordinator, according to the book. “They claim ‘We got the intel! You’ll see it. You’ll see it.’ But like 50 percent of the time the so-called intel doesn’t actually show up.” Apparent drones reported by the Israelis turned out to be birds.
Yet the book also shows how the Biden administration did little to alter its policy toward Israel even as senior U.S. officials abandoned their belief that the government in Jerusalem was operating in good faith. Already in the days after Oct. 7, Blinken’s impression of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s approach was: “It doesn’t matter how many people die. I have a mission to eradicate Hamas and it doesn’t matter how many Palestinians die. It doesn’t matter how many Israelis die.”
Biden, according to Woodward, was cautious about setting limits on Israel’s conduct lest Netanyahu blow past them. In a one-on-one call in April, Netanyahu promised Biden that the Rafah offensive would take only three weeks, a vow the American president never took seriously. “It’ll take months,” Biden replied.
To associates, Biden complained that Netanyahu was a liar only interested in his political survival. And he concluded the same of the prime minister’s associates, saying that 18 out of 19 people who work for Netanyahu are “liars.”
At the same time, support for the Biden administration’s Middle East policy came from unexpected places, the book reveals. Before the Oct. 7 attacks, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a loyal Trump lieutenant and shape-shifter who went from an outspoken critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to a trusted interlocutor, had relayed information to Biden about prospects for the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Graham believed normalization was best completed under Biden, arguing that congressional Democrats would be reluctant to lend support to a Trump-sponsored initiative. Graham promised he could deliver the Republican votes.
After Oct. 7, Graham continued to engage with the crown prince. During a March visit by the senator to Riyadh, which is recounted by Woodward, Graham proposed a phone call with Trump, so the crown prince pulled out a burner phone labeled “TRUMP 45.” In earlier meetings, the crown prince had brandished other such devices, including one labeled “JAKE SULLIVAN” for Biden’s national security adviser.
During the March call with Trump, conducted by the crown prince over speakerphone while Graham was present, the former president teased the senator for once calling for the Saudi royal’s ouster over the assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA concluded Mohammed had ordered. Graham brushed it off, professing to have been wrong about the autocrat.
The royal court in Riyadh, however, is not the comparison Graham uses when describing visits to Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago. According to Woodward, the senator invokes an even more brutal form of authoritarianism.
“Going to Mar-a-Lago is a little bit like going to North Korea,” the book quotes Graham as saying. “Everybody stands up and claps every time Trump comes in.”
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Woodward takes aim at everyone ... as usual.
trump wants to be a member of the ultimate country club of kings, emperors, and dictators ...
A reminder that the former 'president' traitor is putin's cockholster
poor vlad is just now getting over the effects of injecting all that clorox ...
I remember that Clorox story. And at the time there were a few people who actually drank some Clorox!
(And I’m not sure if this is correct but I seem to remember that because of this the Clorox company started putting messages on the containers warning people not to drink it!)
He has a lot to say about Biden
about what?
Well he was running out of space at Mar-a-Lago with all those boxes he had stacked in the bathroom. Maybe he was wondering if Vlad could store a few dozen boxes for him.
Maybe he wants Putin to set up a fancy dacha for him in a Russian resort area.
Trai-Tor-Lago in Sochi
Who knows? We'll have to wait and see when he loses re-election and has to pick which country to flee to to avoid extradition. I'd question if Vlad would actually welcome him.
You know, the regular stuff. Grandkids, recipes and stuff like Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch did on the tarmac...............
CDS ridden, sad.
Trump receiving his orders and talking points.
May have
As many as
Wow, investigative reporting at its best
Isn't this the same guy that every time Trump does something, good or otherwise, he spouts that that action is worse than Watergate, including numerous times about the Russian intervention hoax....and has never been right about any of them?
Why yes.....yes he is.
I hear some repeat that over and over apparently hoping to make it true, but anyone with more than half a brain knows that Russia did in fact (and continues to) meddle in our elections. It is not a hoax; it is very real. It seems Putin learned 'the greatest trick' from the Devil but apparently it only works on rightwing conservatives who are desperate to convince everyone else their candidate isn't in the pocket of a murdering authoritarian foreign leader.
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn't exist."
They're proselytizing for 'God's' latest chosen one.
Let me rephrase the term...
Trump Russian collusion hoax.
Russia, if you're listening... He asked on public national television.
JFC - he's a traitor in every possible way and the cult of the defenders of the indefensible continue
Obviously CNN and MSDNC did not tell you that Hillary's laptop was already in the FBI custody in a closet in DC for several weeks/months when he made that statement.
Do you believe that Russia has the capability to tap into an unplugged laptop in a closet thousands of miles away?
She's already deleted her emails at that point anyway. They'd been subpoenaed, then she deleted them with Bleach Byte and by the time Trump spoke at a rally it was all public knowledge and the FBI was "looking" for them. Trump jokingly asked Russia to help the FBI. That's their big scandal.
Mrs Clinton's personal computer was never compromised. The Democratic National Committee and the Clinton Campaign's computer systems were those hacked by Russia for Trump!
Hilarious when they accuse the right of conspiracy theories while showing their own to do it,
What do you mean by "meddle"?
Hack voting machines? Somehow alter votes? What?
Amazing how many on the left use general terms to try and disparage their opponent, but can't clarify or define what those words mean.
Is he actually saying putin could not find a test in all of Russia and needed to get some from Trump? I sure would like to see some proof of such a lame accusation.
This is Bob Woodward we are talking about.
You know....Mr "everything is worse than Watergate"
So russia produced 108 million tests in 2020 but putin had to get his from trump.and the media is eating it up and spreading the disinformation.
P
More fake news.
I’m having a hard time understanding why I should be mad that Trump sent Covid tests to Putin.
I dont think thats such a big deal either, but I think him having 7 phone calls with Putin is.
Where is the proof of those alleged 7 calls?
I don’t know about that, either. I’m not a former president myself, but I imagine they have conversations with world leaders all the time. As long he’s not working US foreign policy while he’s doing it, there shouldn’t be any harm.
While those phone calls probably aren’t dangerous in and of themselves (so there’s probably no harm in making those calls) I think maybe its just the idea that Trump has established a close friendship with a sleaze like Putin that people find annoying (?)
Being mad is optional. I think it’s mainly symbolic because IIRC early on in the epidemic people were terrified—- there was no vaccine yet. And people were lining up to get tested. But at first there was a big shortage of tests..,
Obviously the small number of tests sent to Putin wouldn’t have any significant effect on the number still available for Americans, but I think it was the idea that with our shortages of tests some were being sent out of the country.