Russian officials said former President Donald Trump sent Russian President Vladimir Putin COVID-19 testing devices during the height of the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov's comment regarding COVID tests sent to Putin aligned with journalist Bob Woodward's assertion in a new book. However, Peskov, denied Woodward's claim that the two leaders had spoken by phone after Trump left office.
"We also sent equipment at the beginning of the pandemic," Peskov said in a written response when asked about the book, Bloomberg News reported. "But about the phone calls — it's not true."
The Trump campaign responded to Woodward's new book, "War," calling it "the work of a truly demented and deranged man."
"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," Trump 2024 communications director Steven Cheung wrote in a statement.
In his book, Woodward wrote that Trump, while president in 2020, secretly sent Abbott COVID testing machines to Putin when the devices were scarce, CNN reported.
Trump told ABC News that neither the tests to Putin nor the phone calls happened.
"That's false," Trump said of Woodward's claims.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrat presidential candidate, tried to exploit the book's reporting about the COVID tests.
"That is just the most recent, stark example of who Donald Trump is," Harris said Tuesday on "The Howard Stern Show."
Harris said Americans were "scrambling to get these kits" during the pandemic.
"And this guy who is president of the United States is sending them to Russia, to a murderous dictator, for his personal use?" Harris added.
President Joe Biden also criticized Trump over the report.
"Those tests to tell you whether you had COVID were in short supply, so he called his good friend, Putin, not a joke, to make sure he had the tests," Biden said during a Tuesday night fundraiser for Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. Bob Casey, Bloomberg News reported.
"What's wrong with this guy?"
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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