Trump’s relationship with Putin has been scrutinised since his 2016 campaign for president, when he memorably called on Russia to find and make public missing emails deleted by Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said.
U.S. intelligence agencies later determined that Russia had meddled in the 2016 election to help Trump, though an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller found no conspiracy between the Trump team and Russia.
Trump sent COVID-19 test machines to Putin for his personal use
Woodward reports that Trump sent Putin COVID-19 test machines for his personal use as the virus began spreading in 2020.
Putin told Trump not to tell anyone because people would be mad at Trump over it, but Trump said he didn’t care if anyone knew, according to the book. Trump ended up agreeing not to tell anyone.
Vice President Kamala Harris, in an interview Tuesday with radio host Howard Stern, accused Trump of giving the machines to a “murderous dictator” at a time when “everyone was scrambling” to get tests.
“This person who wants to be president again, who secretly is helping out an an adversary while the American people are dying by the hundreds every day,” said Harris.
Biden’s anger at Netanyahu has boiled over in private
The book also details Biden’s complicated relationship with Netanyahu as well as private moments when the president has been fed up with him over the Israel-Hamas war.
Biden’s “frustrations and distrust” of Netanyahu “erupted” this past spring, Woodward writes. The president privately unleashed a profanity-laden tirade, calling him a “son of a bitch” and a “bad f——— guy,” according to the book. Biden said he felt, in Woodward’s accounting, that Netanyahu “had been lying to him regularly.”
With Netanyahu “continuing to say he was going to kill every last member of Hamas,” Woodward wrote, “Biden had told him that was impossible, threatening both privately and publicly to withhold offensive U.S. weapons shipment.”
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Biden criticised Obama’s handling of the Russian invasion of Crimea
The book details Biden’s criticism late last year of President Barack Obama’s handling of Putin’s earlier invasion of Ukraine, when Russia seized Crimea and a section of the Donbas in 2014, at a time when Biden was serving as the Democrat’s vice president.
“They f—– up in 2014,” Woodward wrote that Biden said to a close friend in December, blaming the lack of action for Putin’s actions in Ukraine. “Barack never took Putin seriously.”
Biden regrets choosing Garland as attorney general
Woodward reports Biden was privately furious with Attorney General Merrick Garland for appointing a special counsel to investigate Biden’s son Hunter in a tax-and-gun prosecution.
“Should never have picked Garland,” Biden told an unnamed associate, according to Woodward.
Hunter Biden was convicted in June on federal gun charges and faces sentencing in federal court in Delaware in December. He pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in California and is also set to be sentenced in that case in December.
AP
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