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Kremlin confirms Trump sent Russia Covid-19 tests, after former president denied Bob Woodward claim

Kremlin confirms Trump sent Russia Covid-19 tests, after former president denied Bob Woodward claim
October 11, 2024

(CNN) โ€” Russia has confirmed that Donald Trump sent the Kremlin sample Covid-19 tests in the early days of the pandemic, after revelations in veteran journalist Bob Woodwardโ€™s new book raised further questions about the former US presidentโ€™s relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

The Trump administration โ€œsent us several samples of test kits,โ€ Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday, broadly supporting Woodwardโ€™s claim. His intervention comes after Trump denied the claims, telling ABC News they were โ€œfalse.โ€

Legendary reporter Woodward wrote in โ€œWarโ€ that Trump โ€œsecretly sent Putin a bunch of Abbott Point of Care Covid test machines for his personal use.โ€

โ€œPlease donโ€™t tell anybody you sent these to me,โ€ Putin said to Trump, according to Woodward. โ€œI donโ€™t care,โ€ Trump replied. โ€œFine.โ€

โ€œNo, no,โ€ Putin said. โ€œI donโ€™t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me. They donโ€™t care about me.โ€

Peskov did not confirm whether or not those tests were specifically for Putinโ€™s own use, as Woodward writes.

The Kremlinโ€™s press secretary said: โ€œAt that time, the pandemic was starting, and the situation was very difficult for all countries.

โ€œOf course, initially, all countries tried to exchange aid shipments with each other,โ€ he continued. โ€œAt that time, we sent a shipment of ventilators to the United States, and the Americans sent us several samples of test kits, as those were practically unique items. Many countries were doing the same.โ€

The Kremlinโ€™s response seemingly contradicts Trumpโ€™s denial of Woodwardโ€™s claims.

โ€œHeโ€™s a storyteller. A bad one. And heโ€™s lost his marbles,โ€ Trump told ABC News of Woodward on Tuesday. In a statement, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said Trump gave Woodward โ€œabsolutely no accessโ€ for the book. โ€œNone of these made-up stories by Bob Woodward are true,โ€ he said.

Citing a Trump aide, Woodward also reported that there have been โ€œmaybe as many as sevenโ€ calls between Trump and Putin since Trump left the White House in 2021. Peskov denied those claims, saying: โ€œThat is not true; it did not happen.โ€ Trump also denied those claims to ABC News.

The frantic first weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic led to a diplomatic opening for Putin; the Trump White House was criticized at the time for purchasing medical supplies from Moscow, a move that was described by experts as a propaganda win for the Kremlin.

The Trump administration also spent $200 million sending thousands of ventilators around the world, starting weeks after the former president touted America as the โ€œking of ventilators,โ€ but without any established way to locate them, the Government Accountability Office found in a report. Russia was among the countries to receive those ventilators.

Woodwardโ€™s claims once again throw scrutiny on Trumpโ€™s relationship with Putin, weeks before the US presidential election.

They were quickly seized on by Democratic candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris, who said in an interview with Howard Stern: โ€œPeople were dying by the hundreds. Everybody was scrambling to get these (test) kits โ€ฆ and this guy who was President of the United States is sending them to Russia? To a murderous dictator, for his personal use?โ€

โ€œYouโ€™re getting played,โ€ Harris said of Trump.

Trump has, for his part, continued to speak fondly of his relationship with Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 made him a pariah among Western leaders.

โ€œI got along well with him. I hope to get along well with him again,โ€ Trump said during an interview on X with billionaire Elon Musk. Trump added that getting along well with strongmen world leaders โ€œis a good thing.โ€

The-CNN-Wire
โ„ข & ยฉ 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

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