Chicago.- Former President Donald Trump refused on Tuesday to say whether he has spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin since leaving office, as reported in the most recent book by journalist Bob Woodward. But if we had talked, Trump said, it would have been a “smart” thing for the United States.
The Republican presidential candidate was pressed about his communication with the Russian president during a wide-ranging — and at times contentious — interview with Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait at the Economic Club of Chicago. Woodward reports in his book “War” that Trump would have had up to seven private telephone conversations with Putin since leaving the White House, and that he secretly sent the Russian president machines to perform COVID-19 tests at the height of the pandemic.
A Trump campaign spokesperson previously denied the report. In Tuesday’s interview, Micklethwait directly posed the question to Trump: “Can you say whether you have spoken to Vladimir Putin since he stopped being president or not?”
“No comment,” Trump responded. “But I will tell you, if I did it, it would be a smart thing to do. “If I am friendly with people, if I can have a relationship with people, it is a good thing and not a bad thing in terms of a country.”
Trump said Putin, who invaded neighboring Ukraine and has been charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court, is highly respected in Russia and boasted of his relationship with him, as well as with the authoritarian leaders of North Korea and China. .
“Look, I have a very good relationship with President Xi and a very good relationship with Putin, and a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” he said. Of Putin, he later added, “Russia has never had a president so respected.”
Woodward reported that Trump asked an adviser to leave his Mar-a-Lago office so the former president could call Putin privately in early 2024. The adviser, whom Woodward does not identify, said there have been several calls between Trump and Putin since the former president left office, perhaps as many as seven, according to the book, although it does not detail what they talked about.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called the reports false. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said reports about the calls were “not true.”
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