Former President Donald Trump has spoken secretly with Russian President Vladimir Putin multiple times since leaving office, even as he pressured Republicans to block military aid to Ukraine to fight Russian invaders, according to a new book by journalist Bob Woodward.
War , due for publication next week, describes a scene in early 2024 at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida residence, when the former president ordered an aide out of his office so he could speak to Putin on the phone. The unidentified aide said Trump and Putin may have spoken about six more times since Trump left the White House.
The book also recounts that Trump, while still in office at the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020, secretly sent Putin tests — which were rare at the time — for the Russian’s personal use. Putin, who has been described as particularly anxious about being infected at the time, urged Trump not to publicly reveal the gesture because it could harm the American president politically. “I don’t want you to tell anyone because people will be upset with you, not with me,” Putin reportedly said.
The revelations raise new questions about Trump’s relationship with Putin just weeks before an election that will determine whether the former president returns to the White House. The New York Times obtained a copy of the book. The Washington Post , where Woodward has worked for more than half a century, and CNN , where he often appears as a commentator, also reported on the book on Tuesday.
Woodward, who rose to fame with his Watergate reporting and regularly produces bestsellers with explosive stories based on access to high-level sources, attributed his account of ongoing 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 characterized as “maybe as many as seven” contacts. There was no immediate independent confirmation Tuesday.
The Trump campaign dismissed Woodward’s book, attacking the author with typical personal insults — “a real scoundrel,” “slow, lethargic, incompetent, and generally a boring, characterless person” — without addressing any of the specifics recounted in it.
“None of these stories fabricated by Bob Woodward are true and are the work of a truly deranged and insane man suffering from a debilitating case of Trumpian derangement syndrome,” Steven Cheung, the campaign’s communications director, said in the statement. Cheung said Trump did not give Woodward access for the book, noting that the former president had sued the author over a previous book.
The Kremlin also denied Woodward’s book’s information about Trump-Putin talks and the provision of Covid tests. “It’s not true,” its spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said in a text message. “It’s a typical false story in the context of the pre-election political campaign.”
While generally refuting 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 it. But Trump’s oft-stated affinity for the Kremlin leader has long puzzled even his own aides, prompted investigations and worried Republican national security specialists.
U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Putin directed the Russian government to intervene in the 2016 election to help Trump defeat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — a conclusion Trump rejected, suggesting he believed Putin when he denied it. While special counsel Robert S. Mueller III found no criminal conspiracy that could be proven in court, he did document an unusual amount of contacts between Russia and people in Trump’s circle during that campaign.
Trump has continued to praise Putin since leaving office. He called the Russian leader a “ genius ” when Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022, and has since refused to say Ukraine should win the war. He has criticized U.S. aid to Ukraine and pressured congressional Republicans not to approve more aid. 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 it, but the possible terms outlined last month by his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, sounded very similar to what Putin would want. Vance said Russia would be able to retain 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, criticized Trump’s ties to Putin. “Right now, we’re supporting Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against unprovoked aggression from Russia,” she said. “Donald Trump, if he were president, Putin would be sitting in Kiev right now. He’s talking about, ‘Oh, he can end this on day one.’ You know what that is? It’s about surrender.”
Woodward’s book doesn’t mention what Trump and Putin discussed on the call in early 2024, nor does it provide details about the additional calls mentioned by the Trump adviser. It quotes Jason Miller, a top Trump campaign adviser, as saying he “hadn’t heard that they were talking, so I wouldn’t argue with that.” However, Miller also said that “I’m sure they would know how to get in touch” if they wanted to talk.
Avril D. Haines, President Biden’s director of national intelligence, dodged the question when posed by Woodward. “I don’t pretend to be privy to all contacts with Putin,” she told him. “I couldn’t say what President Trump may or may not have done.”
Former presidents occasionally meet with foreign counterparts after leaving office. Indeed, Trump has hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, among others, at Mar-a-Lago. But those meetings were public knowledge, and Trump posed for photos with his guests.
It would be highly unusual for a former president to speak privately with a top U.S. adversary like Putin without clearing the air with the current administration, especially at a time when the U.S. and Russia are on opposite sides of a war in Europe. President Biden has not spoken to Putin since the invasion of Ukraine.