Woodward, who rose to fame with his Watergate reporting and regularly produces bestselling books with explosive reporting based on access to high-level sources, attributed his account of the continuing communications between Trump and Putin to a single Trump aide who is not named in the book. The aide offered no specific details beyond saying there had been what Woodward characterised as “maybe as many as seven” contacts. There was no immediate independent confirmation Tuesday.
Trump’s campaign dismissed Woodward’s book by assailing the author with typically personal insults – “a total sleazebag” who is “slow, lethargic, incompetent and overall a boring person with no personality” – without addressing any of the specifics reported in it.
“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,” Steven Cheung, the campaign communications director, said in the statement. Cheung said Trump did not give Woodward access for the book and noted that the former President was suing the author over a previous book.
The Kremlin likewise denied the reporting in Woodward’s book about conversations between Trump and Putin and the provision of Covid tests. “This is not true,” Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson, said in a text message. “It’s a typical bogus story in the context of the pre-election political campaign.”
While generally disputing Woodward’s account, the Trump campaign statement did not explicitly say whether the former President had spoken with Putin since leaving office and the campaign did not immediately respond to a question about that. But Trump’s oft-expressed affinity for the master of the Kremlin has long baffled even his own appointees, prompted investigations and troubled Republican national security specialists.
US intelligence agencies concluded that Putin had ordered the Russian Government to intervene in the 2016 election to help Trump beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a conclusion that Trump rejected, suggesting that he believed Putin’s denial. While special counsel Robert Mueller did not find a criminal conspiracy that could be proved in court, he documented an unusual number of contacts between Russia and people in Trump’s circle during that campaign.
Since leaving office, Trump has continued to praise Putin. He called the Russian leader a “genius” when Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022 and since then has refused to say that Ukraine should win the war. He has criticised US aid to Ukraine and leaned on congressional Republicans not to approve more assistance. He has boasted that if he wins he will negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine within 24 hours and do so even before the inauguration.
Trump has not explained how he would do that, but possible terms described last month by his running mate, Senator JD Vance, R-Ohio, sounded a lot like what Putin would want. Vance said that Russia could keep the Ukrainian territory it has seized by force in violation of international law and receive a “guarantee of neutrality” from Ukraine, which would not be allowed to join Nato.
Vice-President Kamala Harris, in an interview on 60 Minutes on Monday night, criticised Trump’s ties with Putin. “Right now, we are supporting Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russia’s unprovoked aggression,” she said. “Donald Trump, if he were President, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now. He talks about, ‘Oh, he can end it on day one.’ You know what that is? It’s about surrender.”
Woodward’s book does not report what Trump and Putin discussed in the call in early 2024, nor does it provide details about the additional calls mentioned by the Trump aide. It quotes Jason Miller, a top campaign aide to Trump, saying that he had “not heard that they’re talking, so I’d push back on that”. But Miller also said that “I’m sure they’d know how to get in touch with each other” if they did want to talk.
Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence appointed by President Joe Biden, hedged on the question when asked by Woodward. “I would not purport to be aware of all contacts with Putin,” she told him. “I wouldn’t purport to speak to what President Trump may or may not have done.”
Former presidents meet with foreign counterparts after leaving office from time to time. In fact Trump has hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary and others at Mar-a-Lago. But those meetings were publicly known, and Trump posed for pictures with his guests.
It would be highly unusual for a former President to privately talk with a top US adversary like Putin without clearing it with the current administration – especially at a time when the United States and Russia are on opposite sides of a war in Europe. Biden has not spoken with Putin since the invasion of Ukraine.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Peter Baker
Photographs by: Erin Schaff
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
