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Donald Trump had as many as seven conversations with Vladimir Putin after he left the White House, according to explosive new reports that raise fresh questions about the former US president’s relationship with the Russian leader.
The claims stem from a forthcoming book by veteran journalist Bob Woodward, due to be published next week. The Washington Post, Woodward’s longtime employer, first reported on the book’s contents.
Woodward’s book also reveals that Trump secretly sent Putin Covid-19 tests for his personal use at the height of the pandemic, the report said.
The book, War, reportedly describes a scene earlier this year, when Trump told an aide to leave his Mar-a-Lago office so he could speak privately by phone with Putin. The unnamed aide cited in the book suggested Trump and Putin had spoken as many as seven times since the former president left the White House in 2021.
The reports raise new questions about Trump’s relationship with Putin with less than a month to go until the US presidential election.
Trump, the Republican candidate, trails his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, by more than three points, according to the Financial Times poll tracker, although they are locked in a virtual tie in all seven swing states that will determine who wins November’s vote.
A spokesperson for Simon & Schuster, Woodward’s publisher, did not respond to a request for comment.
The Trump campaign’s communications director Steven Cheung rejected the reports and launched a personal attack on Woodward, calling him a “truly demented and deranged man”.
Cheung said Trump gave Woodward “absolutely no access for this trash book”, adding: “Woodward is a total sleazebag who has lost it mentally.”
A spokesperson for the Harris campaign declined to comment.
Woodward, 81, became famous in the 1970s when he and fellow Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein broke stories about the Watergate scandal, which led to then President Richard Nixon’s resignation. He has written more than a dozen bestselling books, including four volumes on the Trump presidency.
Trump has sued Woodward over a 2022 audiobook based on 20 interviews that Woodward conducted with the former president between 2016 and 2020. Trump has argued that publishing the tapes violates his copyright, while Simon & Schuster has repeatedly filed motions to dismiss the case.
Trump’s possible return to the White House could have major implications for Russia, Ukraine and the Nato alliance. The former president — who called Putin a “genius” after Russia invaded Ukraine again in 2022 — has said he would end the fighting in Ukraine on “day one” if he is re-elected, but has not detailed how he would do so. In last month’s presidential debate, Trump declined to say that he wanted Ukraine to win the war.
Harris has accused Trump of pandering to Putin and told CBS News in an interview that aired on Monday night that she would not meet “bilaterally” with the Russian president unless his Ukrainian counterparts were offered a seat at the negotiating table.
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