Russia has rejected claims made in a new book that Donald Trump spoke to Vladimir Putin multiple times after he left office.
In his upcoming tome, War, journalist Bob Woodward claims he was told by one of Trump’s aides how he was once asked to leave a room at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, so Putin and the ex-president could speak privately.
But, when asked by reporters at the Russian newspaper RBC daily if the claims were accurate, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov simply said: “No, that’s not true.”
Trump’s spokesperson, Steven Cheung, also slapped down the allegations on Tuesday, saying: “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.”
Cheung alleged Woodward is frustrated with Trump after the ex-president sued him in 2023 for publishing audiotapes of their conversations for a previous book.
Trump’s spokesperson continued: “President Trump gave him absolutely no access for this trash book that either belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section of a discount bookstore or used as toilet tissue.
“Woodward is a total sleaze-bag who has lost it mentally, and he’s slow, lethargic, incompetent and overall a boring person with no personality.”
CNN, which obtained a copy of War ahead of its release on October 15, reported on Tuesday that the book suggests there may have been up to seven different conversations between the two men since 2021.
Woodward reportedly writes: “According to Trump’s aide, there have been multiple phone calls between Trump and Putin, maybe as many as seven in the period since Trump left the White House in 2021.”
Elsewhere in War, the journalist also claims Trump secretly sent Putin a shipment of Covid testing equipment at the height of the pandemic in 2020, when such equipment was not always that accessible.
According to Woodward, Putin told Trump: “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me. They don’t care about me.”
The Russian president was known for being particularly cautious during the pandemic, and only appeared to welcome guests if they sat at the other end of a comically long table.
The relationship between the Russian president and Trump, who is hoping to be re-elected to the White House in November, is thought to be a rather friendly one, even now.
While most of the West has distanced itself from Putin since his invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Trump described the land grab as “genius” and “savvy”.
And when the Russian president sarcastically endorsed Trump’s rival Kamala Harris for office, the Republican nominee seemed quite hurt.
He told a rally last month: “I knew Putin. I knew him well. And you know, he endorsed, I don’t know if you saw the other day, he endorsed Kamala. He endorsed Kamala. I was very offended by that.
“I wonder why he endorsed Kamala. Now, he’s a chess player.
“Should I be upset about that? Was it done with a smile? I think it was done maybe with a smile. Who the hell knows. No one is going to figure it out.”