Topline
The Kremlin on Tuesday confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin received Covid-19 testing devices from former President Donald Trump early during the pandemic in 2020, Bloomberg reported, corroborating an excerpt from journalist Bob Woodward’s upcoming book that the former president’s campaign dismissed as “deranged” and “fiction.”
The Kremlin confirmed to Bloomberg News that former US President Donald Trump had sent testing … [+]
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Key Facts
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s top spokesperson, confirmed the story in a statement to Bloomberg and said, “We also sent equipment at the beginning of the pandemic.”
Peskov, however, dismissed the reports of phone calls between Trump and Putin after the former President left office in 2021, saying they were “not true.”
Peskov also addressed the purported phone calls in an interview with Russian media outlet RBC and said: “No, this is not true.”
According to excerpts from Woodward’s upcoming book “War”, cited by the Washington Post and CNN on Tuesday, Trump sent Abbott Point of Care Covid test machines to Putin for his personal used at the height of the pandemic when such equipment was very scarce.
Woodward’s book also notes that Trump called Putin as many as seven times since leaving office in 2021.
What Are Trump And His Campaign’s Reactions To The Book?
In a statement sent to the press, the Trump campaign’s Communications Director Steven Cheung said: “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.” The Republican nominee’s campaign added that the “trash book” belongs in “the bargain bin of the fiction section of a discount bookstore.” Trump also denied the reports in an interview with ABC News, saying Woodward is “a storyteller. A bad one. And he’s lost his marbles.”
