Trump-Putin relationship: New book details secret COVID tests, up to 7 phone calls since 2021

A Trump campaign spokesman vigorously denied the claims in the new book, calling the author “demented and deranged.”

In a forthcoming book, journalist Bob Woodward reports that former President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have a deeper relationship than previously known.

According to excerpts published by CNN and the Washington Post on Tuesday, Trump sent Putin COVID testing machines in early 2020 for his personal use.

“Please don’t tell anybody you sent these to me,” Putin told Trump, according to the CNN book excerpt. “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me. They don’t care about me.”

The book also says that Trump may have had up to seven phone calls with Putin since leaving office in 2021, citing a Trump aide.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung vigorously denied the book’s claims in a statement to B-17 on Tuesday, attacking Woodward in personal terms. He also referenced the fact that Trump has sued Woodward for releasing audio tapes of the former president in 2022. That case remains ongoing.

“None of these made up stories by Bob Woodward are true and are the work of a truly demented and deranged man who suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Cheung said. “Woodward is an angry, little man and is clearly upset because President Trump is successfully suing him because of the unauthorized publishing of recordings he made previously.”

“President Trump gave him absolutely no access for this trash book that either belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section of a discount bookstore or used as toilet tissue,” Cheung added.

Woodward, a former Washington Post report, has authored or co-authored more than 20 books and has written books about each of the last 10 presidents.

Trump’s relationship with Putin has long been controversial. Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the former president said that Putin’s justification for the war was “genius” and “savvy.”