On at least one issue, the Kremlin sided with Bob Woodward against Donald Trump.
Woodward has a new book coming out, and among the revelations that made headlines was his report on what happened when the pandemic hit, when the death toll skyrocketed and people were unable to buy at-home test kits for Covid-19.
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President Trump at this point in 2020 secretly sent Vladimir Putin a number of Abbott Point of Care Covid testing machines “for his own use.”
The Trump campaign said Woodward's book, an advance copy of which was obtained by CNN, consisted entirely of made-up stories.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed receiving the Covid machines.
Side by side with former President Donald Trump and investigative journalist Bob Woodward. (Getty Images)
“In terms of testing, when the pandemic started, countries did not have enough equipment,” Peskov said. “Many countries then exchanged such gestures of support and sent each other supplies of various types of equipment they had.”
In fact, this spring of 2020, Russia sent the Trump administration 60 tons of medical equipment.
Woodward also quotes the words of the Russian dictator, who told Trump: “I don't want you to tell anyone about this, because people will be mad at you, not at me. They don't care about me.”
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Peskov, however, disputed another claim by Woodward that Trump had been in contact with Putin since he left the White House and had had as many as seven phone calls between them. “As for the phones, that's a lie,” Peskov said.
However, in the book “War,” a Washington Post detective describes a scene in which Trump tells his top adviser to leave the room so “he can have what he called a private phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.” Trump officials now say they are not aware of any such conversations.
The former president gave Woodward 18 taped interviews for his previous book, but a spat broke out when the veteran reporter wrote that Trump was unfit for office and was sued by his hero for releasing the tapes.
In this stock photo distributed by Russia's state news agency Sputnik, Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with the acting governor of the Kaliningrad Oblast at the state residence in Novo-Ogaryovo, near Moscow, August 14, 2024. (Gavriil Grigorov/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
I know Woodward's work very well, and while sources can mislead any journalist, he doesn't make anything up.
The rest of the book deal with Joe Biden confronting Putin over the coming invasion of Ukraine if Kamala Harris warned a skeptical Volodymyr Zelensky and – assuming officials assume a 50% chance he might use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukrainians – named the Kremlin chief “the personification of evil”.
The president repeatedly swore at Bibi Netanyahun, called him a whiner and later a “fucking liar,” after the Israeli prime minister stormed into a crowded area called Rafah despite American pressure.
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In a statement from Trump's spokesman that sounds like it was dictated by his boss, Woodward is described as “a truly deranged man who suffers from a debilitating case of Trump syndrome. Woodward is a bad little man and is clearly upset that President Trump is successfully suing him over the unauthorized release of recordings he made earlier. President Trump has given him absolutely no access to this junk book, which either belongs in the discount bin in the fiction section of a discount bookstore or is used as toilet paper. Woodward is a total bastard who is mentally out of his mind, slow, lethargic, incompetent and overall boring and lacking in personality.”
Why stop there?
Trump, who prides himself on his ability to strike back, wastes no time before backing down.
U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris poses during a live-streamed Unite for America rally in Farmington Hills, Michigan, September 19, 2024. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Following Harris' friendly radio interview with Howard Stern, who stated that voting for Trump would be madness, the following post appeared on Truth Social:
“BETA MALE Howard Stern made a fool of himself on his low-rated radio show by interviewing Lyin' Kamala Harris and peppering her with so many SOFTBALL questions that even she was embarrassed.
“He looked like a real fool who worked so hard to make a completely incompetent and ill-equipped person look as good as possible, which wasn't very good. I dumped Howard a long time ago, like most everyone else, and he hasn't been credited with very good judgment since!”
Donald and Howard were, of course, once pals in New York, and Trump attended his wedding.
Trump also asked campaign manager Chris LaCivita to call out Fox News for covering (along with other networks) a government briefing attended by both Biden and Harris about Hurricane Milton as the monster storm headed toward Florida.
“@FoxNews is as bad as any other 'cable news' network… they literally run @KamalaHarris propaganda and TV ads masquerading as a press conference,” Chris LaCivita wrote on X.
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Of course, Harris benefits politically by showing that she and FEMA are working hard to prepare for the Florida storm, as when Ron DeSantis insists on a Category 5 threat.
But amid Kamala's media frenzy, new information finally emerges after weeks in which Trump dominated campaign coverage, reflecting his determination to insert himself into every story that emerges, no matter how negative.
