Donald Trump’s presidential campaign unleashed a stunning attack on author and journalist Bob Woodward, calling the Watergate sleuth “deranged” after the first trickle of revelations from his book.
Trump campaign director Steven Cheung hurled the insults in a statement full of personal invective against 81-year-old Woodward, following a passage in Woodward’s new book War Trump had spoken to Russia’s Vladimir Putin at least seven times since leaving office.
“None of these made-up stories by Bob Woodward are true and are the work of a truly demented and disturbed man suffering from a debilitating form of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Cheung said.
He went on to rip the journalist whose reporting led to the resignation of Richard Nixon, and whose series of books on D.C. institutions has managed to frustrate the cooperation of a litany of top sources — including Trump himself in the past to take.
“Woodward is an angry little man and clearly upset that President Trump is successfully suing him for unauthorized publishing of recordings he previously made,” Cheung said.
“President Trump has given him absolutely no access to this trash book that either belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section of a discount bookstore or is used as toilet paper. Woodward is a total sleazebag who is mentally lost, and he is slow, lethargic, incompetent and generally a boring person with no personality,” he said.
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign labeled journalist and author Bob Woodward “demented and deranged” as excerpts from his new book came to light
Trump collaborated on Woodward’s last book, and the author released “The Trump Tapes” of his recorded conversations.
The blasts came on a day when Trump touted his wife Melania’s book on his Truth Social network as an ideal stocking stuffer. ‘Her book is available nationally and can be purchased EVERYWHERE. It’s really great! She was a fantastic First Lady and shares that experience and much more. She can also write very well, as she showed at the Republican National Convention with her letter, which turned out to be a sensational highlight. Perfect for Christmas. Buy it NOW and ENJOY!’ Trump wrote.
Among the revelations War is that Trump has kept in regular contact with Putin since leaving office – making more than a handful of phone conversations with him, according to the book.
Woodward describes the extent of the contacts and attributes them to a Trump aide in his new book War, CNN reported.
There were “perhaps as many as seven” after Trump left office in 2021, Woodward writes. And the timeline extends beyond Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine.
The intervening period has seen brutal missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and towns, and a resulting flood of US and allied sanctions against Russia as well as Putin and members of his inner circle.
Trump has repeatedly stated during his campaign rallies that Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if he were still in office.
During the height of the pandemic in 2020, Trump also sent Putin a secret stash of Abbott covid testing machines “for his personal use,” Woodward reports.
It came at a time of solidarity gestures as the pandemic spread, but Putin reportedly wanted to keep it quiet.
Bob Woodward has made a career of scoring insider interviews for his in-depth books, often relying on “deep background” information.
Call a friend? According to Bob Woodward’s new book, former President Donald Trump has made no fewer than seven phone calls to Vladimir Putin since leaving office. Trump has repeatedly vouched for his good relations with the Russian dictator
“Please don’t tell anyone you sent this to me,” Putin told Trump, according to Woodward. “I don’t care,” Trump told him. ‘Fine.’
“I don’t want you to tell anyone because people will be angry with you, not with me,” Putin told him. WashingtonPost reported.
Woodward interviewed Trump for his latest book, but Trump publicly attacked the author.
Trump sued Woodward after the release of his 2020 book, Furywho asked for almost $50 million for the publication of tapes of their interviews. Woodward interviewed Trump 19 times for the book and then released “The Trump Tapes” in 2020.
His legal team has blown up efforts to recover royalties from the works.
The attack follows revelations in Woodward’s new book
“This long tradition of candid reporting is based on an axiomatic principle – reflected in the copyright law’s ban on private ownership of government works – that the words a sitting president speaks on the discharge of his office belong to the people,” he wrote. lawyers in A submit last year. Last August, a judge from Pensacola, Florida ruled that the copyright case should be transferred to New York.
Trump’s team argued that Woodward and his publisher, Simon & Schuster, “blatantly and unlawfully appropriated President Trump’s copyright interests.”
Putin has maintained an extraordinary level of isolation during the outbreak of the pandemic, and some experts believe that his lack of outside contact may have contributed to his decision to launch and an invasion that left thousands of Russian and Ukrainian dead has cost.
According to the Post, a phone call came in early 2024, which also resulted in the book being obtained. It reported that Trump ordered an aide away from his office at Mar-a-Lago for the meeting with Putin.
The report comes days after the New York Times reported on Trump’s meeting with Putin in Hamburg in 2017, their first in-person meeting.
Putin, whose forces had already taken over Crimea, told Trump that Ukraine was “a corrupt, made-up country.” Trump told him he was considering sending weapons to Ukraine, the Times said.
Take a test: Putin advised Trump not to tell people he sent him Covid tests early in the pandemic because people might get mad at him
Trump vouched for his relationship with Putin during his September meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
‘What do you think?’ Trump asked him, during a meeting that apparently upset former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. “We have work to do to change the president’s mind on Ukraine,” Tillerson told aides as the meeting ended.
Woodward’s book paints a contrasting picture of President Joe Biden, whose administration has sent billions in advanced weapons to Kiev.
“Damn Putin,” Biden told advisers after the invitation. ‘Putin is bad. We are dealing with the height of evil,” he said.
Trump stood side by side with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last month and said he would end the bloody conflict. He has criticized U.S. funding for Ukraine, and his efforts to get Zelensky to investigate the Bidens were featured in Trump’s first impeachment.
“I also have, as you know, a very good relationship with President Putin and I think if we win the election, we will resolve it very quickly,” Trump said.