What happened
Donald Trump spoke with Vladimir Putin several times after leaving office and sent him scarce Covid-19 testing machines for his personal use at the start of the pandemic, Bob Woodward said in his upcoming book “War.” Woodward also details President Joe Biden’s battles with Putin and his contentious relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu.
Who said what
Biden’s “frustration and distrust” of Netanyahu erupted last spring, when he concluded the Israeli prime minister was interested only in his political survival and “had been lying to him regularly” about Israel’s plans in Gaza, Woodward wrote. “Bibi” was a “son of a bitch” and a “bad f–king guy,” Biden reportedly told an adviser.
Trump spoke privately with Putin as recently as early 2024, Woodward reported, citing a Trump aide who also said the two leaders had spoken as many as seven times since February 2021. It is “highly unusual” for former presidents to secretly converse with an “avowed adversary of the United States on the opposite side of a war,” The New York Times said.
Citing Woodward’s book, Vice President Kamala Harris slammed Trump on Howard Stern’s radio show Tuesday for reportedly sending Russia’s “murderous dictator” rare Abbott Point of Care Covid test machines in about May 2020, when “everybody was scrambling to get these kits” and Americans were “dying by the hundreds every day.” It was Putin’s idea to keep the gift secret, according to Woodward. Trump told ABC News that Woodward was a bad “storyteller” who had “lost his marbles.” His campaign said, “none of these made-up stories by Bob Woodward are true.”
What next?
“War” is set for release Oct. 15. Biden is scheduled to talk to Netanyahu on Wednesday, for the first time in seven weeks, about Israel’s plans to strike Iran, Axios said.