As the coronavirus tore through the world in 2020, and the United States and other countries confronted a
shortage of tests designed to detect the illness, then-President
Donald Trump secretly sent coveted tests to Russian President Vladimir Putin for his personal use.
Putin, petrified of the virus, accepted the supplies but took pains to prevent political fallout — not for him, but for his American counterpart. He cautioned Trump not to reveal that he had dispatched the scarce medical equipment to Moscow, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor
Bob Woodward.
Putin, according to the book, told Trump, “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me.”
Four years later, the personal relationship between the two men appears to have persisted, Woodward reports, as Trump campaigns to return to the White House and Putin orchestrates his bloody assault on Ukraine. In early 2024, the former president ordered an aide away from his office at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, so he could conduct a private phone call with the Russian leader, according to Woodward’s account.
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