In his explosive new book “War,” legendary journalist Bob Woodward details Donald Trump’s “erratic” behavior, compares his Florida residence to authoritarian North Korea, and reveals that the former president quietly communicated with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin as many as seven times since leaving office.
In an interview with Trump ally Lindsey Graham, the senator from South Carolina reiterated that President Joe Biden won “fair and square” in 2020 but Trump “doesn't like to hear that.”
Graham also shed some light on how everyone in Trump’s orbit lavishes him with praise and adoration.
“Going to Mar-a-Lago is a little bit like going to North Korea,” Graham said. “Everybody stands up and claps every time Trump comes in.”
The book also recounts the former president’s deep obsession with whining and making false claims about the 2020 election results.
“I gave a speech today and I only mentioned the 2020 election twice!” Trump said to Graham, according to Woodward’s report. “As if it had shown maximum restraint,” Woodward writes.
Graham also speculated about why Trump’s latest presidential campaign has been built around fear, hoaxes, and even unhinged conspiracy theories as he battles multiple criminal indictments.
“Trump is becoming more erratic,” Graham admitted. “These court cases. I think they would rattle anybody.”
The Republican presidential nominee has also kept in close contact with Putin since leaving office. Trump aide Jason Miller said there have been “maybe as many as seven” calls between Trump and Putin since 2021.
Woodward reports that Trump even ensured his pal Putin would stay healthy, thoughtfully sending him scarce COVID testing devices during the early days of the pandemic in 2020. Meanwhile, makeshift freezer trucks were used to preserve the excessive numbers of deceased people in New York City, and Americans waited in hourslong lines for testing, with delayed results.
The Trump campaign responded to the book’s revelations in an email on Tuesday.
"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,” the statement said. “Woodward is an angry, little man and is clearly upset because President Trump is successfully suing him because of the unauthorized publishing of recordings he made previously. President Trump gave him absolutely no access for this trash book that either belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section of a discount bookstore or used as toilet tissue.”
A quick refresher on the “angry, little” man who wrote this book: Bob Woodward broke the “Watergate” scandal along with fellow journalist Carl Bernstein. The revelations about criminal activities in the Nixon administration resulted in 69 indictments, 48 convictions, and Richard Nixon stepping down as president.
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Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Woodward’s book claims that Donald Trump sent COVID-19 tests to Vladimir Putin. The book actually reports that the then-president sent the Russian president Abbott COVID testing devices.