Trump says it would be a “smart thing” to talk to Putin, though he won’t confirm that he has

CHICAGO (AP) — Former President Donald Trump declined Tuesday to say whether he has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin since leaving office, journalist Bob Woodward’s latest book reports. But if the two were to talk, Trump said, it would be “a smart thing” for the United States.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was pressed about his communication with the Russian president during a wide-ranging and sometimes contentious interview with Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait at the Economic Club of Chicago. Woodward reports in his book “War” that Trump has had as many as seven private phone calls with Putin since leaving the White House and secretly sent the Russian president COVID-19 testing machines during the height of the pandemic.

A Trump campaign spokesman previously denied the report. During Tuesday’s interview, Micklethwait put the question directly to Trump: “Can you say yes or no if you’ve talked to Vladimir Putin since you stopped being president?

“I don’t comment on that,” Trump replied. “But I’ll tell you that if I did, it’s a smart thing. If I’m friendly with people, if I can have a relationship with people, that’s good and not bad for a country.”

Trump said Putin, who invaded neighboring Ukraine and has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, is well-respected in Russia and touted his relationship with him as well as North Korea’s authoritarian leaders and China.

“Look, I had a very good relationship with President Xi and a very good relationship with Putin, and a very good relationship with Kim Jong-un,” he said. Of Putin, he later added: “Russia has never had a president they respect so much.”

Woodward reported that Trump asked an aide to leave his office at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, so the former president could have a private call with Putin in early 2024. The aide, whom Woodward don’t name, he said there. There have been multiple calls between Trump and Putin since Trump left office, perhaps as many as seven, according to the book, though it does not detail what they discussed.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called the report false. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said reports about the calls were “not true.”

Trump’s relationship with Putin has been under scrutiny since his 2016 presidential campaign, when he memorably asked Russia to find and release missing emails deleted by his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. Trump publicly sided with Putin over U.S. intelligence officials over whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help him, and Trump has criticized U.S. aid to Ukraine as he tries to avoid the ‘attack of Russia.

Later in the interview on Tuesday, Trump declined to say whether he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he lost the November election. He also claimed that there was a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 elections, despite the violent attack by his supporters on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

“Come on. You had a peaceful transfer of power compared to Venezuela,” Micklethwait replied.

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Villages reported from New York.