(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 Woodwardโs new book raised further questions about the former US presidentโs relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
The Trump administration โsent us several samples of test kits,โ Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday, broadly supporting Woodwardโs claim. His intervention comes after Trump denied the claims, telling ABC News they were โfalse.โ
Legendary reporter Woodward wrote in โWarโ that Trump โsecretly sent Putin a bunch of Abbott Point of Care Covid test machines for his personal use.โ
โPlease donโt tell anybody you sent these to me,โ Putin said to Trump, according to Woodward. โI donโt care,โ Trump replied. โFine.โ
โNo, no,โ Putin said. โI donโt want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me. They donโt care about me.โ
Peskov did not confirm whether or not those tests were specifically for Putinโs own use, as Woodward writes.
The Kremlinโs press secretary said: โAt that time, the pandemic was starting, and the situation was very difficult for all countries.
โOf course, initially, all countries tried to exchange aid shipments with each other,โ he continued. โAt 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 Kremlinโs response seemingly contradicts Trumpโs denial of Woodwardโs claims.
โHeโs a storyteller. A bad one. And heโs lost his marbles,โ Trump told ABC News of Woodward on Tuesday. In a statement, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said Trump gave Woodward โabsolutely no accessโ for the book. โNone of these made-up stories by Bob Woodward are true,โ he said.
Citing a Trump aide, Woodward also reported that there have been โmaybe as many as sevenโ calls between Trump and Putin since Trump left the White House in 2021. Peskov denied those claims, saying: โThat 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 โking 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.
Woodwardโs claims once again throw scrutiny on Trumpโs 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: โPeople were dying by the hundreds. Everybody was scrambling to get these (test) kits โฆ and this guy who was President of the United States is sending them to Russia? To a murderous dictator, for his personal use?โ
โYouโre 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.
โI 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 โis a good thing.โ
The-CNN-Wire
โข & ยฉ 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.