Former President Donald Trump got sly on Tuesday when asked if he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin since leaving office in January 2021.
“I'm not going to comment on that,” Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg News at the Chicago Economic Club when asked about possible contacts with the Kremlin tyrant.
“But if I do it, it's the smart thing to do,” the 78-year-old continued.
Journalist Bob Woodward reports in his new book “War'' that Republican presidential candidate Trump had “no fewer than seven” telephone conversations with President Putin, 72, as a private citizen, and that the two spoke by phone. This has led to new questions and speculation about the relationship. The 45th president is trying to independently negotiate an end to Moscow's war with Ukraine.
Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait, who conducted the interview, later said that Trump appeared to have agreed to the call.
“Actually, I said I wouldn't comment on those things,” Trump shot back.
In his book, Woodward reported that President Trump sent a COVID-19 test to President Putin at the beginning of the global pandemic in early 2020.
The former president initially denied the claims, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed last week that the Trump administration “sent us some samples of test kits.”
Peskov also denied that there was a telephone conversation between President Trump and President Putin after the presidential election.
President Trump has long boasted of his relationship with President Vladimir Putin, and even before taking office he had insisted that he would quickly bring Ukraine and Russia to a peace agreement.
Neither President Trump nor President Biden has met with President Putin since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last month, President Trump said he had good relations with both Russia and Ukraine, and Zelensky said he hoped the relationship with Ukraine would be stronger than any ties with Moscow. said.
President Trump has not laid out a strategy for ending the war, but he hinted that Ukraine might have to cede land taken by Russia during the 32-month war and told reporters last month that We'll have to wait and see.”
