Putin the Covid swab and the seven secret conversations with Trump

Donald Trump secretly sent Covid tests to Vladimir Putin in 2020 for his personal use. Bob Woodward reveals this in the new book ‘War’ coming out on the 15th of this month, as anticipated by the Washington Post, recalling that at the time tests in the United States were a scarce commodity. It was Putin, terrified of Covid, who recommended Trump not to publicize the shipment. “I don’t want you to tell anyone otherwise people will be angry with you, not with me,” Putin reportedly told Trump.

Since then, the personal relationship between the two has remained alive. At the beginning of 2024, the former American president, now a candidate in next November’s elections, sent an aide away from his office in the Mar-a-Lago residence, so he could speak privately on the phone with the Russian leader. Again according to the same source, Trump’s advisor, the former president has reportedly spoken to Putin seven times since he left the White House in early 2021.

Woodward: “Trump worse than Nixon”

Woodward concludes that Trump is a worse political figure than Richard Nixon, who was forced to resign following the Watergate tapes scandal brought to light by Woodward’s investigation together with his colleague Carl Bernstein. “Trump he was the most impulsive and reckless president in American history and demonstrates the same character as a candidate for president in 2024″, denounces Woodward. Russia had tried to influence the outcome of the 2016 elections, in favor of Donald Trump, as the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation had shown in 2020.