Trump Secretly Sent A Bunch Of Covid Test Kits To Putin, Claims Book

Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin share a closer relationship than what is known to the public, according to revelations in a forthcoming book by veteran US journalist Bob Woodward. The two have talked to each other over phone calls on as many as seven occasions since Trump left office in 2021, according to excerpts from Bob Woodward's book.

The excerpts of Bob Woodward's upcoming book, War, to be released on October 15, were published by CNN and the Washington Post and sheds light on Trump and Putin's bond.

While the world was grappling with the coronavirus outbreak in 2020, Donald Trump sent some COVID test kits, which were scarce and not easily available at the time, to Putin for personal use, says the book. Trump "secretly sent Putin a bunch of Abbott Point of Care Covid test machines for his personal use," Mr Woodward has written.

Putin, who isolated himself during the early days of the outbreak and was concerned about contracting the virus, received the gift but urged his then US counterpart to keep this favour a secret. "Please don't tell anybody you sent these to me," Mr Woodward quotes Putin as telling Trump.

According to the book, Putin asked Trump to not make the gift public to save the latter from a political fallout. While Trump's first reaction was "I don't care," and "Fine" to this request, Putin insisted, "I don't want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me. They don't care about me," according to the excerpt published in CNN.

In another episode, Mr Woodward says that a close aide of Trump revealed he was asked to leave the room by him so "he could have what he said was a private phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin." The incident reportedly happened at Trump's Florida club Mar-a-Lago.

The revelations made in the book have drawn rejection by Trump's campaign, according to The Hill. Trump Campaign's communications director Steven Cheung told The Hill, "None of these made up stories by Bob Woodward are true" and that Trump did not give access to Mr Woodward for the new book.

Mr Cheung is also quoted as saying that Mr Woodward "suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome."

In a similar statement to Business Insider, Mr Cheung said, "Woodward is an angry, little man and is clearly upset because President Trump is successfully suing him because of the unauthorized publishing of recordings he made previously."