The Republican candidate for the United States presidential elections, Donald Trump, has remained in contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin after his departure from the White House in January 2021 and has spoken with him by phone at least seven times. Also, during the covid pandemic, in 2020, his last year in office, he secretly sent the autocrat several tests to detect coronavirus infection. These are some of the revelations of the book Warwhich the reporter Bob Woodward—who revealed to the world along with his colleague Carl Bernstein the Watergate scandal, which precipitated the resignation of President Richard Nixon—will publish on the 15th, and of which the newspaper Washington Posthis alma mater journalistic, has released a preview. The volume focuses on two open wars during Joe Biden’s term, in Ukraine and the Middle East, and Trump’s long shadow on the polarization of the United States.
According to Woodward, Putin, a germaphobe, accepted the shipment of Covid detectors, but advised Trump not to disclose what he had done. “I don’t want him to tell anyone because people are going to be very angry with you, not with me.”
The relationship between the two continued after Trump concluded his term and moved to his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida. A source from the residence tells the journalist that the former president ordered his aides at the beginning of this year to leave him alone in his office so he could have a private conversation with the Russian president. The same source points out that the two politicians have spoken at least seven times over the last four years, although an advisor to the Republican candidate, Jason Miller, denies that they have been in contact. In that time, Russia has invaded Ukraine and maintains its bloody aggression; The United States has become the main military supporter of the government in kyiv, and Trump has pressured Republican lawmakers to refuse to maintain that aid.
The Republican presidential candidate, who met two weeks ago for the first time since the beginning of the war with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in New York, maintains that, if he returns to the White House, he will end the conflict within 24 hours, predictably forcing kyiv to accept Moscow’s conditions. At the beginning of the invasion, Trump described Putin as “a genius.”
The striking harmony between the two was evident since Trump won the US presidential elections in 2016. US intelligence services believe that Putin ordered his government to interfere in that campaign for the benefit of the Republican and to prevent Democrat Hillary Clinton from winning. Trump has rejected that possibility after the Russian president denied it. An investigation led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller found numerous contacts between circles close to Trump and those in the Kremlin, although it did not identify sufficient evidence to conclude that a conspiracy had existed.
That type of relationship between the Russian president and the American candidate leads Woodward, current deputy director emeritus of the post and who has written four books about Trump, to launch a harsh criticism of the former president’s ability to repeat his term: “Trump has been the most reckless and impulsive president in the history of the United States and is demonstrating the same personality as a presidential candidate in 2024 ″, points out in War.
The book also reveals that by October 2022, the US intelligence services, which months before had precisely warned about Russian invasion plans, calculated that Moscow was considering using its nuclear weapons in Ukraine, given the fierce resistance that its troops had found in the neighboring country. Analysts estimated the possibility of this step materializing at 50%. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin even called his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, to warn him. Shoigu replied, in another conversation two days later, that the Ukrainians were planning to launch a “dirty” bomb, which combines conventional explosives with radioactive material. “We don’t believe you,” Austin replied, “don’t do it.” “It was probably the most difficult moment of the entire war,” Colin Kahl, a former senior Pentagon official, later declared, according to the book.
Netanyahu, “a fucking liar”
War It also provides a detailed review of the year of war in the Middle East and the Biden Administration’s efforts to prevent the conflict in Gaza from spreading to other parts of the region. Among other things, it tells how Secretary of State Antony Blinken was trying to prevent an Israeli invasion of the city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt and the last Gazan town that Israeli forces had not occupied. Blinken was unsuccessful: the offensive began in May. “It was obvious that Blinken lacked influence,” Woodward writes, according to the post. After the Israeli entry into Rafah, the American president himself described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “fucking liar.”
Woodward also writes about Trump’s decision to run again, according to a summary by CNN, with which the journalist also frequently collaborates. In a series of conversations with Senator Lindsey Graham, a confidant of the former president, the legislator advises him to turn the page after his defeat in 2020; A few days later, the candidate told him: “I gave a speech today and I only mentioned 2020 twice!”, “as if he had held back a lot,” Woodward adds. Graham describes his impressions of his visits to Mar-a-Lago in the book. “Going there is a bit like going to North Korea,” says the senator. “Everyone stands up and applauds every time Trump comes in.”
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